News

Germany-based Atlas International Film has acquired international sales rights to Dimitri Verhulst’s The Weeping Walk, ahead of its world premiere tomorrow at Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (Poff).

Verhulst’s feature debut will play in the Poff First Feature Competition. Atlas acquired the film from producers Eurydice Gysel and Koen Mortier of Belgium’s Czar Film & TV.

The Weeping Walk is a surreal road movie in which a mother’s unexpected last will turns a funeral into a procession of several days across the countryside.

Peter Van den Begin, Tom Vermeir, Dominique Van Malder, Marijke Pinoy, Tine Roggeman...

Germany-based Atlas International Film has acquired international sales rights to Dimitri Verhulst’s The Weeping Walk, ahead of its world premiere tomorrow at Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (Poff).

Verhulst’s feature debut will play in the Poff First Feature Competition. Atlas acquired the film from producers Eurydice Gysel and Koen Mortier of Belgium’s Czar Film & TV.

The Weeping Walk is a surreal road movie in which a mother’s unexpected last will turns a funeral into a procession of several days across the countryside.

Peter Van den Begin, Tom Vermeir, Dominique Van Malder, Marijke Pinoy, Tine Roggeman...

Stars: Ruth Becquart, Steve Geerts, Anneke Sluiters, Tine Van den Wyngaert, Dominique Van Malder, Tom Vermeir | Written and Directed by Stef Lernous

Sometimes, just sometimes, you come across a film that defies categorisation; some that defy logic. Then there’s Hotel Poseidon. Which defies categorisation, logic, explanation… you name it. This film is Literally someones twisted fever dream – a series of vignettes told in one locale from the point of view of one person but featuring a bizarre, absurdist and downright disturbing cast of characters And situations – writ large on the screen. And whomever this dream belongs to has some serious issues!

The films “plot” – if you can say this film has a plot – tells the story of Dave, the reluctant manager of a hotel where fungus covers the walls and comments such as “faded glory” and “has seen better times” completely fall short to describe this establishment. He wanders...

I’m not sure what I just saw. Was it surreal comedy in a setting that exudes sympathy puke aura? Was it a nightmarish horror sending us down a chaotic rabbit hole of insecurities, hopes, and inferiority? Perhaps a little of both? Either way, Stefan Lernous’ Hotel Poseidon throws any semblance of a narrative out the window with an opening scene that does nothing but rotate around the lobby of this derelict establishment to supply an ingenious title card explaining the film’s true star: its locale. The lights flicker, the coffee machine combusts, the tenants (read: squatters) do whatever they want, and someone might just be dismembering a body in the kitchen—but if anybody asks, he’s just doing “kitchen stuff.” And poor Dave (Tom Vermeir) simply wants to sleep.

How can he when his neighbor watches porn all day through the paper-thin walls? Or when his friend...

Wild Bunch TV-sold “Albatros,” Turner Latin America’s banner title “Amarres” and REInvent Studios’ globe-trotting “Peacemaker” will feature at a 54 series-strong Buyers Showcase, which launches today March 25 as a backbone of Series Mania’s online Digital Forum, Europe’s first big festival experiment in a virtual marketplace.

Also featuring a powerful Co-Pro Pitching lineup, packed by pedigree producers and creatives, the Digital Forum’s industry audience, such as the number of accredited distributors, still has to be confirmed.

Some high-profile titles are missing: Opener “The Luminaries,” for example, from Fremantle and Working Title, and HBO closer “Run.” That said, the Buyer’s Showcase looks set to include five of Series Mania’s original 10 main competition entries and 13 of its 15 International Panorama titles, the festival’s two main sections.

Looking to the long-haul, as it also address urgent financial fall-out from Covid-19, the industry needs festival selection more than ever.

“Series...

The first season of ‘Beau Sejour’ was shown on Netflix and set in a hotel.

A host of new Flemish TV series, at script stage and in production, were pitched today at Connext, the Flanders Image industry event in Ghent.

Flemish TV is having a moment thanks to the international success of shows like Tabula Rasa and 13 Commandments. International companies attending Connext to scout new series this year included Netflix, Attraction Distribution, Dynamic Television, Global Screen, Global Series Network, Just Film, Serie Series, Series Mania, Wild Bunch TV and Zdf.

Some of the top pitches were A Good Year,...

Lille, France — The Torino Film Lab and Series Mania have announced this year’s nine participating projects in the SeriesLab forum. SeriesLab is a joint venture intended to address one of the most significant challenges facing the European fiction TV industry: Developing screenwriting talent.

The event is held as a forum to mentor creative talent by gathering writers, creators and showrunners from nine series in early-stage development. The projects participate in a five-month course with three residential workshops and two online sessions, all culminating in a final presentation at the Series Mania Co-Production Forum on May 3.

SeriesLab project manager Angelica Cantisani credits the success of last year’s inaugural forum with producing an even stronger crop of projects this year. “We had the advantage of a really successful first edition that spread the word,” she says.

The nine participants that will be taking the stage in Lille are a testament to the forum’s diversity,...

Stars: Geert Van Rampelberg, Ina Geerts, Johan van Assche, Laura Verlinden, Dominique Van Malder, Roel Swanenberg, Kyan Steverlynck, Ingrid De Vos, Michael Vergauwen, Circé Lethem, Brit Van Hoof, Tibo Vandenborre, Stan Puynen, Roy Aernouts, Jan Hammenecker | Written by Carl Joos | Directed by Hans Herbots

Detective Inspector Nick Cafmeyer (Geert Van Rampelberg) is an adult man stuck in a childhood nightmare – the unresolved abduction of his older brother Bjorn when they were both under ten. The main suspect, and known paedophile, Ivan Plettinckx (Johan Van Assche) is interviewed by the police but there’s no evidence to convict him at the time. Haunted by memories of seeing him taken and consumed by guilt Cafmeyer has made Plettinckx his life’s work. The appearance of his nemesis in his back garden goading him with his presence coincides with a horrific new crime. A husband and wife are discovered tied to up, beaten,...

Stars: Geert Van Rampelberg, Ina Geerts, Johan van Assche, Laura Verlinden, Dominique Van Malder, Roel Swanenberg, Kyan Steverlynck, Ingrid De Vos, Michael Vergauwen, Circé Lethem, Brit Van Hoof, Tibo Vandenborre, Stan Puynen, Roy Aernouts, Jan Hammenecker | Written by Carl Joos | Directed by Hans Herbots

Detective Inspector Nick Cafmeyer (Geert Van Rampelberg) is an adult man stuck in a childhood nightmare – the unresolved abduction of his older brother Bjorn when they were both under ten. The main suspect, and known paedophile, Ivan Plettinckx (Johan Van Assche) is interviewed by the police but there’s no evidence to convict him at the time. Haunted by memories of seeing him taken and consumed by guilt Cafmeyer has made Plettinckx his life’s work. The appearance of his nemesis in his back garden goading him with his presence coincides with a horrific new crime. A husband and wife are discovered tied to up, beaten,...