Wallimage returns to Cannes with four films

Cannes, its red-carpeted steps, its stars, its glitter. Cannes, its sumptuous premieres, its incessant meetings, its plethoric market. Cannes and the beautiful month of May, forsaken for two years because of the world pandemic and that a relaxed and sunny edition last July almost made us regret. But in 2022, everything is back in order : back to business, back to the competition that lines up promises like pearls and to the side sections where we often discover exciting nuggets.

For this 75th edition, which will be held from May 17 to 28 , Wallimage will once again be on the bridge. With four films in his bag. Of course, we are an economic fund and we choose our co-productions based on financial data, but a presence on the Croisette is always a plus, an opportunity to attract the attention of foreign producers looking for profitable relocations to Wallonia.

Our four feature films on the Croisette perfectly represent the identity of the Walloon fund, sweeping through the most diverse sections.

For the eighth time, we will accompany in the Louis Lumière auditorium, a new film by Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne. A happy habit for Wallimage, born (need we remind you?) in the wake of the first Walloon Golden Palm won by Rosetta.

Since 2002 and the official selection of The Son (Olivier Gourmet’s acting award), we have not missed a single Cannes meeting of the brothers. They have never disappointed us. In 2005, the duo won a second Palme d’Or with The Child and in 2008, the Screenplay Prize for The Silence of Lorna. In 2011, The Kid on a Bike won the Grand Prize of the Festival while Two Days and a Night won a mention from the Ecumenical Jury in 2015. After the official selection of The Unknown Girl in 2017, The Young Ahmed wins the director’s award in 2019. An exceptional list of achievements that could be completed this year, the last one, tense and terribly topical : Tori and Lokita. For the anecdote, the Dardenne Brothers will find in the competition, the president of the jury who, in 1999, campaigned for them to be crowned : the great David Cronenberg himself.  It is Vincent Lindon who will have to be convinced this year, which, given the social fiber and the cinephilia of the French actor, does not seem insurmountable.

Wise producers, the brothers will also present Philippe Faucon’s Les Harkis , which they co-produced with Les films du Fleuve. This film supported by Wallimage tells a little-known episode of the Algerian war and is programmed at the Directors’ Fortnight. It brings together Pierre Lottin (Les Tuches) and Théo Cholbi… who we see again in La Nuit du 12, selected at Cannes Première.

Co-produced in Belgium by Versus, Dominik Moll’s (News from Mars, Lemming, Harry, a friend who cares…) new feature film follows an investigation… that will never identify the culprit. The pitch is original, but the interest of the script lies elsewhere, in the clinical examination of the work and life of gendarmes (Bouli Lanners and Bastien Bouillon in the main roles), confronted with the mystery and confusion of the victim’s family.

To complete this already very exciting proposal, we welcomed with great joy the selection in the Cannes Junior section of Secrets of my father that Vera Belmont finished this year. Forget the wait and the uncertainties : the animated feature film, partly made in Wallonia, is here and it also benefits from a great vocal cast. Jacques Gamblin, Arthur Dupont and Michèle Bernier are indeed the main actors of this delicate film that retraces the decisive moments of a childhood spent in the shadow of the Shoah, from the flat country to the promised land, between nightmares and lighter moments, but always haunted by the memory. A Belgian co-production by John Engel (Left Field Ventures) that promises a lot of emotion and is more necessary than ever in our time when the most fundamental values are constantly questioned by hordes of paranoid revisionists.