Earlier this week, the NY Disappearing Act IV European film festival confirmed both Felix van Groeningen’s The Misfortunates and Nanouk Leopold’s Brownian Movement for the fest’s screening bill. It’s the very first time that the NY festival selects Belgian cinema from Flanders and they enthusiastically signed up for two films.
The Disappearing Act IV European film festival is organized by a number of European cultural organizations in the framework of the European Union National Institutes for Culture (EUNIC) in New York. The festival will screen 25 contemporary films from all over the Old Continent. Disappearing Act launched as an annual event in 2009 and instantly became a popular event in New York for its unique, carefully curated celebration of the vitality of European cinema. This year, the program presents films that have gained applause on the festival circuit and with critics, yet remain largely unknown to American audiences.
The Misfortunates, Felix Van Groeningen’s acclaimed adaptation of best-selling author Dimitri Verhulst’s novel of the same title, will offer the NY public a unique taste of Flanders with its confronting story of an all-male family living in the filthiest shack in the unsightly town of Reetveerdegem by the principle: "God created the day and we party our way through it." Brownian Movement is a story in a fairly different tone, dealing with the issues a married couple have to face after the woman has taken other men into a rented appartment. Brownian Movement was directed by Nanouk Leopold and it’s screening at Dissapearing Act will be the movie’s NY premiere.