14/09/2006

The Selection Committee of the Centre du Cinéma et de l’Audiovisuel de la Communauté française de Belgique has announced the results of the second session of 2006 – the projects it will support in forthcoming months.

Heading the list is Mr Nobody, a Toto & Co Films production that marks the return of the director Jaco Van Dormael. It is one of the highest funded projects at €620,000.

Van Dormael has not made a film in ten years. His most recent was The Eighth Day (1998), which was nominated for a Golden Globe after having picked up Best Actor and Best Actress awards at Cannes (for Daniel Auteuil and Pascal Duquenne, respectively), as well as three Joseph Plateau awards (Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor).

Van Dormael’s previous film, Toto the Hero (1991), won him a number of international awards (Caméra d'Or at Cannes; César for Best Foreign Film in France; Best Actor for Michel Bouquet, Best Script, Best Photography and Best Debut Film at the EFA; and four Joseph Plateau awards). This new project, a fantasy tale set in the US, is set to be another success, and an ambitious one at that.

Other promising projects include Léa, the second feature by Bouli Lanners – after Ultranova [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Bouli Lanners
film profile] (see Focus) – a Versus production that received €470,000; Home, for which Need Production has been allocated €300,000; and the new film by Belgian/Swiss director Ursula Meier.

The debut feature La régate by Bernard Bellefroid, co-produced by Les Films du Fleuve, also received €300,000. Following the much acclaimed documentary Rwanda, les collines parlent, (lit “Rwanda: The Hills Speak”), this new film which was selected at this year’s Cannes Atelier was funded by the CNC and the Fondation Beaumarchais.

Scriptwriting funding was granted to two upcoming projects: the third feature by Vincent Lannoo (Ordinary Man and Strass), a Hélicotronc production; and the third documentary by the directing duo Marc-Antoine Roudil and Sophie Bruneau, Les yeux de la ville, produced by Alter Ego Films (Arbres and Ils ne pourraient pas tous mais tous étaient frappés).

The latest film by US independent director Amos Kollek, Restless, was granted €100,000. The film is being produced by Belgium’s Paradise Films and Marylin Watelet, also a producer of Chantal Akerman’s films and US titles American Stories (1988) and A Couch in New York (1996).

(Translated from French)