There is a noticeable shift and we feel that in the coming months, projects will once again multiply. Will this 103rd session be the last of the Covid era? The prospect excites us all, as you can imagine.
However, for this first deadline of 2021, the Wallimage board of directors, meeting through screens, has decided to keep the fund’s own requirement criteria. 902,000 euros will be invested in eight very attractive projects. As a result, the next four sessions will be slightly better than usual.
Between Dog and Wolf offered us not one, but FOUR feature films, considered in a single file since it is an industrially coherent slate. As a result, these Black Swan Tales are among the most original projects ever submitted to Wallimage and could inspire other producers. This collection is based on a common genre (the horror thriller), but also on a post-production pipeline that will be applied each time. Benuts will take care of the VFX, Cob Studios of the sound effects, Bardaf of the sound postproduction… For the stories, the writers, the directors, the actors, each project is independent of the others. Three of the four films will be shot in Wallonia, two are in French and two in English. The model envisaged here is clearly inspired by that of the Blumhouse company in the United States, which produces feature films with reasonable budgets (around 1 million) based on stories conceived by specialists in the genre. Some films are excellent and every now and then a project becomes a huge success. Get Out, for example, has made Blumhouse an international production company. Entre Chien et Loup intends to duplicate this experience. From the scripts we’ve devoured, this is a real possibility, especially at a time when VOD platforms are flourishing around the world and are very fond of this type of thrill.
At first glance Funny Birds might seem more “classic”. But this is not really the case. This second feature film by Marco La Via and Hanna Ladoul, a couple who were previously noticed at the ACID section of Cannes, is set on a farm in the northeastern United States and tells the story of a daughter’s reunion with her mother, whom she barely knows. It doesn’t take long for their relationship to turn sour, but suddenly everyone is faced with a game-changing bird flu outbreak. Now that the pitch is set, it’s time for surprises. The four-star cast, first of all led by two formidable actresses, stars international renown whose identity it is still premature to reveal. Then the decor. Like Mandy (already co-produced by Umedia), this feature film will be entirely shot… in Wallonia. For 35 days and in a unique place: a farm. The rental of equipment at TSF, dressing rooms at Macadamcar, costumes at Tigreville, are added to a post-production at Dame Blanche Genval and Bardaf. All the VFX will be done in La Hulpe in the studios of the unavoidable Benuts. A team of 18 people will work on the shooting. Among them… a chicken trainer.
Another co-production between France and Belgium, Angèle Rivière tells the story of a worker who accidentally becomes pregnant and is drawn into the battle for the legalization of abortion. We are in 1974 and this fight will give a new meaning to his life. The well-documented script is fascinating, with an attractive cast including Laure Calamy, Yannick Choirat, Zita Hanrot, Christelle Cornil and Josiane Balasko, directed by Blandine Lenoir, who brought the general public together with her previous feature film, Aurore. If there is no Walloon shooting, part of the team will come from our region. Tararantulahas also located the image post-production in our region, which will be done at Charbon, the sound post-production at Dame Blanche and the special effects at Mikros.
No Belgian shooting either for Saturne, the second collaboration of Les Films du Fleuve with Patricia Mazuy after Paul Sanchez is back. In this hijacked thriller, the Saint Cyr director will pit two half-brothers against each other around the bowling alley that the elder inherited from his father. As the new boss is a policeman, he entrusts the management of the establishment to his younger son, who has no fixed job and an unpredictable personality. Obviously, it’s going to go wrong. The sound will be Walloon while the music will be signed by the young group Wyatt E from Liège. Mikros, Bardaf and Cobstudios will take care of the post-production in Liège.
Like Black Swan Tales, Des gens bien is a project initiated in Belgium. This is a 6X50 minute series that once again brings together the entire Truce team. That is Hélicotroncas producer, Matthieu Donck, Benjamin D’Aoust and Stéphane Bergman as scriptwriter and director. We are still in a wooded Walloon region (here the region of Couvin), for a thriller that revolves around the French-Belgian border on an insurance scam that will quickly take catastrophic proportions. The offbeat tone will no doubt bring to mind Fargo or Ozark, a suspenseful thriller spiced with irreverent black humor. A team of thirty Walloons will participate in this long shooting while Eyelite, Benuts and Bardaf will invest in the adventure. In addition to the RTBF, Arte is co-financing this series which should have three seasons and will be the first Franco-Belgian co-production of the series fund.
Wallimage will also co-finance two other files initiated by us, documentary ones.
Addio Amore, proposed by Iota, will be signed by the Walloon Jean-Michel Dehon. It is part of the celebrations of the 75th anniversary of the agreements between Italy and Belgium and will be broadcast in prime time on RTBF. If the subject has already been treated, the angle of attack is really interesting since it will evoke the role of women in the success of this massive immigration. RAI should also program this document.
Light + will offer us four heteronormative visions of the LGBTQI+ world. It is led by Limited Adventure, a new Walloon production company led by Thomas Meys, a very active post-production director for the last few years. Light + is one of the projects supported by RTBF within the framework of #RESTART and will be broadcast on Tipik in prime time, in early summer 2021. Two authors, two directors, the sound engineer, the editor and the colorist will be Walloons with interventions of Bardaf and Koko arrose la culture. The creation of the musical universe of Light + will also be a regional affair with Pale Grey and Glauque from Liège, a leading French-speaking electro hip-hop group based in Namur which, by the way, also appears in the soundtrack of the excellent À l’ombre des filles, a feature film co-produced by Versus and co-financed by Wallimage.
Like Limited Adventures, Bardaf! Productions submits a project to us for the very first time. Newcomer to our company doesn’t mean beginner though: Olivier Nomen is a well-known consultant in the animation world and knows the sector inside out. This allowed him to join forces with two French leaders, Caribara and Dandeloo, for La cabane à histoires, a hybrid series mixing live action and 2D. The 26 episodes of 7 minutes each are devoted to the adaptation of a children’s book, which implies different characters and graphic styles each time. For this season 4, the Belgian authors will be particularly honored and the RTBF will position itself as a broadcaster. Waooh! will handle some of the additional design, modeling and storyboards, as well as a quarter of the layouts and animation for the series. The sound postproduction will be provided by Genval-Les-Dames, which is very popular with producers for this first session of 2021.
