Bullhead

Michaël Roskam’s highly praised debut Bullhead won the Best Feature Award at the Victoria Film Festival in Canada (3-12 February). This victory will surely give cast, crew and supporters alike a boost of self-confidence in view of the upcoming Academy Awards prize ceremony this Sunday. Bullhead is nominated for an Oscar in the Best Foreign Language Film category.

After 10 days of more than 150 films from all over the world, the film claimed the award for Best Feature at the Victoria Film Festival earlier this month. The award is one more decoration in what is now becoming a true victory march around movie fests all over the world, following among others the Jury and Critics Prize at Beaune and the Propeller Award for Best Film at the Motovun Festival. The film was also rated an exceptional 3.5 out of 4 points in the highly influential AP movie review.

Michaël R Roskam's Academy Award-nominated Bullhead has added some more silverware to its collection at this year's Magritte Awards for French-speaking Belgian cinema. The film won Best Co-production, Best Screenplay and Best Editing, as well as Best Actor. Because of linguistic restrictions, Bullhead was not eligible in the Best Film or Best Director categories.

Bullhead's lead actor Matthias Schoenaerts received the Best Actor award, while Roskam and Alain Dessauvage received the Best Screenplay and Best Editing Awards respectively. The Award for Best Co-production with Flanders finally went to Bullhead producer Bart Van Langendonck of Savage Film.

Drafthouse Films, the US distributor of  Michaël R Roskam’s Best Foreign-language Film Academy Award-nominee Bullhead, has announced that will open the film in selected theatres in New York, Los Angeles and Austin on 17 February. Other US markets will follow in the weeks following the premiere.

Roskam's feature debut was acquired by Drafthouse Films following its US premiere at Fantastic Fest, where it won Best Picture in the AMD/Dell Next Wave Competition, which highlights first-time feature filmmakers. Bullhead has won 25 awards to date.

The career of Flemish actor Matthias Schoenaerts went global in 2011. Bullhead made its international debut in Berlin and was later selected as Belgium's candidate for the 2012 Foreign-language Oscar. Meanwhile the 34-year-old claimed his first substantial English-language part in the US remake of Loft, then a leading role in French for Jacques Audiard in Un goût de rouille et d'os.

Those who have worked with Schoenaerts are immediately struck by his presence as an actor. Loft director Erik Van Looy recalls his earliest appearances as a child actor, playing opposite his father Julien on stage in The Little Prince. 'Even then you could see that he had a magnetic presence,' he says. 'Every time he was there he lit up the screen.' Michaël R Roskam, who directed him in Bullhead, says the same thing. 'You feel it immediately, he has this kind of DNA that all great actors have.'

Michaël R Roskam’s feature film debut Bullhead, representing Belgium at the Oscars, is among the five films nominated for the Best Foreign-Language Academy Award. Bullhead is Belgium’s sixth Oscar nomination in this category. Jean-Loup Felicioli and Alain Gagnol’s A Cat in Paris also grabbed a nomination in the Best Animated Feature category. The winners of the 84th Academy Awards will be announced in Hollywood on 26 February.

Bullhead is an emotionally driven tale of revenge, redemption and fate set against the backdrop of the Belgian bovine growth hormone mafia. The story starts with young cattle farmer Jacky (Matthias Schoenaerts) who is approached by an unscrupulous veterinarian to make a shady deal with a notorious beef trader. But the assassination of a federal policeman and an unexpected confrontation with a mysterious secret from Jacky’s past set in motion a chain of events with far-reaching consequences.