A touch of Flanders in IFFR selection

This year’s International Film Festival Rotterdam (27 January-7 February) features a number of new and recent productions from Flanders. The fest’s Cinemart co-production platform selected Patrice Toye’s new project to be presented to key film financiers, sales agents, buyers and commissioning editors from around the globe. Newcomer Xavier Rombauts of Emeral Films has been selected for the Rotterdam Lab in which young producers get a networking crash course.

One of the films selected for this year’s IFFR is Not Waving, But Drowning by Elias Grootaers, a VAF Wildcard-funded documentary about illegal immigrants living in Belgium. An interview with Grootaers can be found in the new spring 2010 issue of the Flanders Image magazine. The film’s producer is Emmy Oost (Double Take).

Another sign of the current revival of the short film format in Flanders can be found in the fact that two shorts are competing for the Tiger Shorts contest: Manon De Boer’s Dissonant and Anouk De Clercq’s Oops Wrong Planet. Both films come from the August Orts collective.

IFFR also selected a number of features that premiered at other key international fests, such as Cannes 2009 entry Lost Persons Area by Caroline Strubbe and Dorothée van den Berghe’s Toronto entry My Queen Karo. Emerald Films producer Xavier Rombauts has been selected by the IFFR to attend the Rotterdam Lab, Cinemart’s platform for promising young producers. 

Erased, Patrice Toye’s new feature film project, is selected for the fest’s prestigious Cinemart co-production platform. Fewer than 35 projects are selected each year to be presented by their makers to a group of key financiers, funders, sales agents, buyers and commissioning editors from around the globe.

Finally, The Aviatrix of Kazbekis, a Dutch-Belgian co-producion, has the honour of closing the festival. The Flemish producer of the film is Ellen De Waele of Serendepity Films.