Shattered Past

Tom Heene’s Welcome Home, which only recently received an invitation to Venice, and Patrice Toye’s Little Black Spiders are the Flemish eye-catchers at the 36th World Film Festival in Montreal (23 August-3 September). Heene’s debut feature will be screening in the First Films World Competition, while Toye’s film will be celebrating its world premiere in the prestigious Focus on World Cinema section. In total, no less than 10 Flemish (co)productions were confirmed for the Canadian fest’s line-up.

With selections for both Montreal and the International Critics’ Week in Venice, filmmaker Tom Heene has pulled off an impressive feat. In Montreal’s First Films World CompetitionWelcome Home is in the running for one of three Zenith Awards. Producer of Welcome Home is Tomas Leyers for Minds Meet. The Brussels-based production company even has a second film screening in Montreal: minority co-production The World Belongs to Us by director Stephan Streker was confirmed for the Focus on World Cinema programme.

The Palm Springs International Shortfest has selected four Flemish short films from over 3,000 worldwide entries. Anke Blondé’s Dura Lex, VAF Wildcard winner Boris Sverlow’s Shattered Past, Jeroen Bogaert's Early Birds and Michael Palmaers’s Nuru were added to the fest’s line-up. Palm Springs promises to once again attract a Hollywood crowd with its star-studded shorts such as Pitch Black Heist with Michael Fassbender and The End with Charlotte Rampling.

Michael Palmaers’s Nuru – described by the festival as a ‘dazzling, CG-enhanced story’ – is no stranger to the festival circuit. The film has already been selected for Fantasporto, Clermont-Ferrand, ANIMA and the Leuven international Short Film Festival. Nuru is inspired by The Explanation and The Empire of Light by surrealist painter René Magritte and was produced by Eric Goossens for Walking the Dog (A Monster in Paris).

Two Flemish films charmed the juries at the Brussels ANIMA festival for animated films: both Roman Klochkov’s bear love story Natasha and Boris Sverlow’s  Russian revolution odysey Shattered Past were laureled with awards. The festival’s main award went to South Korean animator Beomsik Shimbe Shim's The Wonder Hospital.

The Academy Award nomination for A Cat in Paris, a French/Flemish co-production, and the international popularity and sales successes for the Chickentown series showed once again that the Belgian and Flemish animated film industries are booming. The ANIMA festival received no less than 99 Belgian animated films, 20 of which entered in official competition.

Five animated shorts from Flanders are running in the national competition of Anima (17-26 February), the annual animation celebration that takes place in Brussels. Five more films are screening in a Belgian panorama, while co-production The Monster of Nix by Rosto receives a special screening.

Anima is showcasing a wide variety of animation talent from Flanders this year. In the national competition, there's Bruno Wouters' Daddy, Don’t Forget Your Glasses, Roman Klochkov's Natasha, Boris Sverlow's VAF Wildcard-winning Shattered Past, Yves Bex's The Appointment and Tristan Morelle's The Secret Child.

Guy Lee Thys’ new feature Mixed Kebab and Geoffrey Enthoven’s award-winning Come As You Are have been selected for the Cinequest Film Festival (28 February-11 March) in California. Three shorts also made it to the pioneering fest's final line-up: Kevin Meul’s The Extraordinary Life of Rocky, Boris Sverlow’s Shattered Past and Nicolas Daenens’ 27.

Mixed Kebab, which will premiere internationally in the Global Landscapes Competition of the festival, is praised by Cinequest’s Terra Wood for the way the ‘electrifying and multicultural cast brilliantly captures courage, tolerance and the beauty of love conquering hate’. Geoffrey Enthoven returns to Cinequest after his previous feature The Over the Hill Band was presented as part of the 2010 edition of the fest.