While a certain erosion in the number of projects initiated in Belgium has been noted for several months, mainly due to the new Tax-Shelter rules, this session was marked by a strong comeback of projects that were previously labelled “majority”. They have done well and FOUR of them have just been selected by the Wallimage Board of Directors. A record!
First but not least, Troisièmes noces is David Lambert’s… third feature film. It presents a tempting cast where we find Bouli Lanners, Virgnie Hocq, Jean-Luc Couchard or Jean-Benoit Ugeux, the Brussels director has written a social comedy, adapted from a novel of the same name by Tom Lanoye. A recently widowed fifties man, who is also gay, meets a young Congolese woman who wants a white marriage to be able to live in Belgium. But the story is actually a little more complicated than expected. Frakas is still in charge on the Belgian side in a tripartite that also includes Canada and Luxembourg. Here, the Walloon expenses are concentrated at Mikros and Dame Blanche, in the casting and among the technicians. Shooting will start in March.
The second feature film selected is a 100% Belgian film with an astronomical budget of over 15 million Euros. Can’t be done? Not for Ben Stassen, the pope of European animation. The man is not only a demanding and visionary director, capable of creating films that unashamedly compete with Pixar and Dreamworks, he is also an inspired producer with contacts on every continent. The son of Big Foot is the new film from nWave Studios. So far, three of his films have sold more than 10 million tickets worldwide: Samy’s extraordinary journey, Wild Safari 3D and Encounter in the Third Dimension. His other animated works have all passed the five million admissions mark or are in the process of doing so. Even if the studio is based in Forest, many Walloon artists work there. Like the two directors: Ben Stassen, himself, and Jérémie Degruson.
In general, Wallimage is quite happy to receive one TV series project per session. Here, the Board has selected… four! The first is a work initiated and produced in Belgium by a promising company, Narrativ Nation. With 25 episodes of 7 minutes each, Quasi Lucas is already a Belgian event as it will be the first live Belgian French-speaking series for young people in the last 40 years. It tells the adventures of a 12 year old teenager, who arrives in his new blended family. From a situation of an only child, he is surrounded by two half-sisters and a half-brother: a way to see life from a very different angle. The Walloon expenditure is mainly based on filming personnel and rentals, but the international sales potential of this original format is quite attractive.
The last work initiated in Belgium which will be co-financed by Wallimage is also intended for television. And it is already highly anticipated. Season 2 of La Trêve will be shot in the spring for broadcast on RTBF next February. After the triumph of season 1, Helicotronc has gathered a bigger budget for ten episodes that should keep French-speaking Belgium on the edge of its seat, but not only. Thus the series will normally also be programmed on France 2, via Netflix and in all countries and regions that welcomed the first season with open arms. Or even more. The story will take place several years after the tragic epilogue of the initial season. We will meet again some of the key characters for a complicated investigation that will take us to another small village in the Ardennes where strange things are happening.
Co-produced by France and Belgium (which replaces Canada in the financing plan), the third season of Versailles will be supervised here by Entre chien et loup. We discover Louis XIV who only dreams of extending his empire and imposing his power on the whole of Europe. But its delusions have a cost: the people are tired of paying and the revolt is rumbling… The sound of Versailles will be Walloon as the special effects which should be made (it is a great first at this level) by Dreamwall.
The Carolo studio will have the opportunity to make its weapons in this field in another series, but of a very different caliber since The Cell is cut into ten episodes of… ten minutes for France television and the web. It tells the spectacular (mis)adventures of a small accountant without history incarcerated by mistake in a cell that crosses time and space. It is co-produced by Belvision and directed by Guillaume Lubrano, an impressive one-man band already responsible for Metal Hurlant Chronicles. The episodes are mainly filmed in the studio in Keywall and for some exteriors in the Carolo region.
The last project selected for this 83rd session is an international feature film co-produced in Belgium by Scope Pictures which initiates a collaboration with Scandinavia. A Norwegian film set during the Second World War, The Spy follows a famous actress who, one thing leading to another, becomes a double agent. The gleaming cast is composed of Ingrid Bolsø Berdal (Cold prey, Westworld), Adrien Brody (the pianist), or Stellan Skarsgaard (Nymphomaniac, Avengers…). Twelve days of filming will be located in Wallonia (while nothing is happening here) and many of the post-production jobs will be taken over by regional companies. A perfect record, a proposal that could not be refused.
