Savage Film presents new projects at Rotterdam; Oscar-nominated Flemish director Michaël R. Roskam’s Belgian-set feature The Faithful planning shoot.

The Faithful, set in Brussels against the backdrop of the gang war in the city in the early 1990s, is expected to star Matthias Schoenaerts, who worked with Roskam on his debut feature Bullhead.

Production had originally been expected to begin in 2016 but the film’s producer, Bart Van Langendonck of Savage Film, told Screen that the film could move into production much sooner.

“We’re looking to shoot later this year,” Van Langendonck said of the film, which Savage is making with Stone Angels in France.

Sales agents are clamouring around the project, which is likely to be packaged up and announced formally in Cannes.

Roskam’s most recent feature was US drama The Drop, starring Tom Hardy and James Gandolfini in his final role.

New projects

The Savage Film boss was speaking during this year’s International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) (Jan 21-Feb 1).

He will be at the festival this weekend (Jan 24-25) to present Nathalie Teirlinck’s new feature project Tonic Immobility (working title) at co-production event CineMart.

The film is about a young woman working as an escort who dodges deeper social contact. When she’s forced to take care of her son after the death of her ex, her apparent indifference fades away and she is confronted with emotional emptiness in her life.

Savage Film is aiming to set up the film as a Belgian/Canadian coproduction.

New Tom Barman film

Van Langendonck is also hatching a new feature with cult Belgian filmmaker and musician Tom Barman, founder of rock band dEUS.

The Alcoholics will be Barman’s first feature as director since Any Way The Wind Blows in 2003. A first draft of the screenplay will be ready by early June.

This is a story about a Miami nightclub janitor turned drug smuggler who ends up in somebody else’s place in ‘The Hab’, a retro-futuristic re-hab center for alcoholics on the Basque coast. 

Savage Films is planning to set up The Alcoholics, which already has support from the Flanders Audiovisual Fund, as a Belgian/Irish/Spanish co-production. It will be English-speaking and the aim is to go for an A-list cast.

Van Langendonck has known Barman since the early 1990s. The film producer is a former concert promoter who used to book gigs for Barman’s band.

Vandekeybus’ gallops to finish line

Savage is close to finishing production on dancer turned director Wim Vandekeybus’ Galloping Mind.

The film will be released by Kinepolis in Belgium in the summer.

A sales agent should be announced once a rough cut is available in the spring.

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