Philippe Bober’s The Coproduction Office has come on board for world sales on Blue Bird, the second feature from highly rated young Belgian director Gust Van den Berghe [pictured].


The film is in advanced post-production and should be ready in time for Cannes.

The 25-year-old Van den Berghe’s first feature, Little Baby Jesus Of Flandr, was chosen last year for Directors Fortnight.

Blue Bird, which was shot in Togo, is loosely inspired by the play, L’Oiseau Bleu, by the Nobel Prize winning writer, Maurice Maeterlinck.

Tomas Leyers, of Brussels-based Minds Meet, who worked with Van Den Berghe on Baby Jesus (which he successfully “self-released” in Belgium) is again the producer.

The film is about two kids from a remote Afrian village and their search for a mysterious blue bird, which they manage to capture after a long journey through the weirdest of worlds and experiences.

Van Den Berghe has described Blue Bird as the second part of a “triptych” - a series of movies about birth, the road and death. “The first one (Baby Jesus) is about permanent innocence. This one (Blue Bird) is more about the road and losing that innocence…and, at the moment (for the third film), I am working on guilt,” the director recently commented.

Tomas Leyers said he was happy to have Coproduction Office as world sales representative: “Not only do I appreciate directors like Carlos Reygadas, Kornel Mundruczó or Roy Andersson, but I also hold the work of Philippe Bober in high esteem. He was always an inspiration for me in terms of my work as producer. The expertise of Coproduction Office is exactly what a film like Blue Bird needs and I am looking forward to this collaboration.”

Bober has been following Gust van den Berghe since Little Baby Jesus Of Flandr.”I was particularly impatient and curious to see Gust’s second feature. In Blue Bird, Gust demonstrates a great maturity and a strength which are substantial characteristics of great directors, and this despite his young age, Blue Bird is a remarkable film in its form and beauty, and its unique storytelling is filled with moments of grace and humor. It’s original, refreshing, and intelligent. True cinema.”

Brussels-based Minds Meet, created by Leyers [producer] and Caroline Strubbe [director], also produced Strubbe’s Lost Persons Area, which screened in Cannes Critics’ Week in 2009.

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