Brothers

Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah’s VAF Wildcard-winning short Brothers grabbed the First Prize at this year’s fourth edition of the Baghdad International Film Festival (3-7 October). The third prize also went to a Flemish short: Anke Blondé’s Dura Lex.

Brothers (pictured on the right) tells the tragic story of two young men of the same age that follow opposite paths in their lives, which cross in the end. The fest’s International Jury considered it ‘a film with a well-written script and a perfect dramatic structure, with strong characters, that is emotionally touching and full of tension.’

Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah's short film Brothers is set for a triple international screening with selections confirmed for the Netherlands Film Festival (26 Sept – 5 Oct), the Baghdad Film Festival (3 - 7 Oct) and the International Student Film&Video Festival of the Beijing Film Academy (4 – 11 Nov). The directors' duo also just wrapped the multicultural comedy series Bergica that is expected to air on Flemish TV channel Acht this fall.

El Arbi and Fallah's short Brothers kicked off successfully by grabbing a VAF Wildcard. The film went on to win the Audience Award at the Leuven International Short Film Festival and was chosen Best Student Film at the Ghent Film Festival last year. Together with Kenneth Mercken's The Letter, the film was also in the running to be nominated for this year's Student Academy Awards.

Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah’s short film Brothers and Kenneth Mercken’s The Letter will represent Flanders at this year’s 39th Student Academy Awards. On 9 June the winners of the Student Awards, aka the Oscars for best student films, will be announced during an awards ceremony at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills.

In total, 51 entries from 29 different countries are competing in the Best Foreign Student Film category. 518 entries from students representing 105 US colleges and universities are challenging each other in the categories Alternative, Animation, Documentary and Narrative.

The 17th edition of the Leuven International Short Film Festival (3-10 December) again highlights talented short cinema from Flanders. With a strong Flemish short film competition, the VAF Wildcards and a number of professional activities, Leuven is for a short time the epicenter of short cinema in Flanders.

2011 has been a strong year for Flemish shorts with the Cannes Jury Award for Wannes Destoop’s Swimsuit 46 and the Grand Prize in Valladolid for Kevin Meul’s The Extraordinary Life of Rocky. Now the IKL fest has selected 20 short films from promising directors who may give us a new wave of international Awards in the future.

The Flanders Audiovisual Fund (VAF) has once again awarded five promising graduation filmmakers with a VAF Wildcard. This year’s winners are Kenneth Mercken’s The Letter and Adil El Arbi & Bilall Fallah’s Brothers in the fiction category, Kenneth Michiels’s Twenty-One + Seven and Jeremy De Ryckere’s The Heir for Documentary and Boris Sverlow’sShattered Past for Animation.

The VAF Wildcards are aimed at giving young filmmaking talent a chance to embark on a first professional project by providing a (starting) budget of €40,000 or €60,000, plus a professional coach. Now in its seventh edition, the VAF Wildcards have quickly become the most important awards in Flanders.