11/02/2009

Two Belgian co-productions are hitting screens this week. One is an animated project backed by Belgian funding bodies. The other is an adaptation of a major literary classic, financed in part by the Tax Shelter.

Irish director Tomm Moore’s debut feature Brendan and the Secret of Kells [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Didier Brunner
interview: Tomm Moore
interview: Viviane Vanfleteren
film profile] is a textbook example of the new wave of European animation.

Faced with the dominance of US films, European producers are joining forces to get ambitious projects off the ground. France’s Les Armateurs and Belgium’s Vivi Films – still basking in the success of Belleville Rendez-vous [+see also:
trailer
film profile] – thus expressed interest in this imaginative adaptation of the legendary Book of Kells, a medieval story of unknown origin whose manuscript can be found in Dublin’s Trinity College.

Les Armateurs provided 36% of the budget, as did Vivi Films (with backing from Promimage, Wallimage, the French Community Film Centre and the Vlaams Audiovisual Fund), and the rest of the budget came from Ireland. The film shoot and other studio work were shared between the three countries.

The film is being launched today in France and Belgium (on 15 screens, distributed by Kinepolis).

This week’s other Belgian co-production is symptomatic of another widespread phenomenon: French productions that find additional funding in Belgium thanks to the Tax Shelter.

In The Sea Wall [+see also:
trailer
film profile], Rithy Panh returns to the narrative genre with an adaptation of Marguerite Duras, starring eminent actress Isabelle Huppert. Not straying too far from his recent documentary forays, the director said he was attracted to the novel for its "dialogue between reality and fiction".

Produced by France’s CDP, with backing from French television industry heavyweights (France 2 cinéma, Canal + and Arte), the film was co-produced by Belgium’s Scope Pictures.

Also hitting screens is Charles Nemes’ French film Séminaire [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (“Seminar”), which recounts the adventures of the inept characters from TV series Caméra Café, as they travel to Paris.

There is also a more low-key release (on only one screen in Brussels) for Juraj Lehotsky’s acclaimed Slovakian documentary, Blind Loves [+see also:
trailer
film profile], which was presented in the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight.

(Translated from French)