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.
Bullhead, which is nominated for the Foreign-language Oscar this year, features Schoenaerts as a cattle farmer involved in the illegal trade in growth-hormone-laced beef. The film received its international premiere at last year's Berlin International Film Festival. From there, it grabbed several kudos such as the New Authors Audience Award and the Press Jury's Acting Award at the most recent AFI Los Angeles film fest; Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor Award at the Fantastic film fest in Austin; and the New Flesh Award at Montreal’s Fantasia film fest, as well as both the International Jury Prize and the Press Prize at the Beaune International Thriller Film Festival. In its home territory, it won six Flanders Film Awards, including Best Film, Best Director and Best Actor.
The film was also shown at several other key international fests such as Vancouver, The Hamptons, Chicago, and Doha Tribeca, and, this week, at the Palm Springs International Film Festival. This while Variety selected Roskam as one of its 10 Directors to Watch in 2012.
Bullhead was Belgium's top-grossing indigenous production of 2011. The film is now set for a theatrical release in France through French distribution outfit Ad Vitam, and the US, where distributor Drafthouse plans to open the film on 17 February.
Bullhead is produced by Van Langendonck (Monkey Sandwich) for Savage Film, in co-production with Eyeworks, Artémis and Waterland Film. International sales are handled by Celluloid Dreams. The Flanders Audiovisual Fund (VAF) supported the film.