Three Belgian films in Locarno

Vanja d’Alcantara’s Beyond the Steppes, Alex Stockman’s Pulsar and Jonas Baeckeland’s short Twelve Going on to Sixty have been selected for the International Film Festival of Locarno (4-14 August). While Beyond the Steppes is selected for International Competition, Pulsar will be competing in the Filmmakers of the Present section. Twelve Going on to Sixty will screen in the Short Film Competition.

Beyond the Steppes – the feature debut by Vanja d’Alcantara – is selected for the prestigious Concorso Internazionale (International Competition) and will be competing against approximately 20 other films by both young and established directors. The film is in the running for the prestigious Pardo d’Oro (the Golden Leopard) and prize money of approximately €67,365 (CHF90,000).

In Beyond the Steppes, Nina, a young Polish woman, is deported with her baby by the Soviet Army in 1940, to the hostile wastes of the USSR. She has to work in a sovkhoz under the control of the Russian political police. When her child becomes ill, she leaves to find medicine with a group of Kazakh nomads. The film draws the intimate and personal experience of this woman, as she’s forced into exile, struggling against the extreme conditions of this inhuman land.

The Swiss festival also invited Alex Stockman’s Pulsar for the Cineasti del Presente (Filmmakers of the Present) competition, a section devoted to first and second features and an ideal platform to discover new talent. Filmmakers of the Present, according to the festival, is dedicated to films ‘that are original and innovative in their approach, subject or style’. The winning feature will be going home with about €22,455 (CHF30,000) and the Pardo d’Oro Cineasti del Presente – Premio George Foundation. In Pulsar, a young man gradually loses his grip on reality, due to his obsession with a mysterious computer hacker.

More young talent can be found in the Concorso Pardi di Domani (Leopards of the future) competition for short films for which Jonas Baeckeland’s Twelve Going on to Sixty has been selected. This section has built a reputation for discovering new talent by selecting the first films of Fatih Akin, Barbara Albert, Paul Thomas Anderson, Laurent Cantet, François Ozon, Andrea Staka, Roberta Torre and many others.

Films in this category are eligible for the main prize of roughly €7,485 (CHF10,000) but also for a nomination for the European Short Film Awards and a pre-selection for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Short Film Awards.

Pulsar is a production of Kaat Camerlynck for Corridor, and Beyond the Steppes is a production of Annemie Degryse for Lumière/Lunanime. Both films were supported by the Flemish Audiovisual Fund.