Fabrice du Welz’s ‘Maldoror’, about Belgian serial killer Marc Dutroux, is first in planned trilogy about “my very strange country”

Maverick filmmaker Fabrice du Welz acknowledges that his new feature Maldoror – generating strong buzz ahead of its world premiere in Venice in an out-of-competition slot – is likely to provoke controversy in his native Belgium.

But, he adds, the film should also be “cathartic” for Belgian viewers. 

Maldoror is set to be released in Benelux by O’Brother Distribution early next year following further festival outings in Ghent and a festival in the Netherlands. The film, sold by WTFilms, was produced through Frakas Productions.

The police thriller is directly inspired by the horrific case of Marc Dutroux, the notorious Belgian serial killer, child molester and rapist who is currently serving a term of life imprisonment.

Dutroux was first convicted for the rape of young girls in 1989. He was released after three years in jail but went on to commit a series of further crimes.

“The story was very shocking of course but everything around the story – the cops, the justice [system], the government – was so muddy and so troubled,” says du Welz. “Still today, that story is not finished. It is still going on – the case is not over. We all know that.

“After 30 years in isolation, [Dutroux] is probably completely insane and mad… he’s a monster, a real monster.”

While du Welz isn’t sure how Maldoror will be received in its local market, he is sure “that the movie is not sensationalist. I hope the Belgian public will see it because it is such a high-profile story. Everybody comments on that story all the time. It’s an honest film, that is all I can say.”

The director, now 51, was in his early 20s when the hunt for Dutroux was underway. 

“I remember it quite well. It was so big, so shocking at the time,” he says of the nationwide police investigation. “I remember the whole of Belgium was in a state of shock. We couldn’t believe what was going on in front of our eyes.”

The case exposed cracks in Belgian policing and caused a huge political scandal. Questions remain as to whether Dutroux was an “isolated predator” or part of a much bigger network.

Telling the story

In the film, Anthony Bajon plays a fictional police officer from a troubled background who becomes obsessed with a case involving a child molester based on Dutroux – an obsession that ends up unsettling his personal life. Beatrice Dalle and Sergi Lopez also feature in the cast.

“That’s why we like the film a lot, because it is telling something that is eating all Belgians from inside, these horrible events we lived through in the 1990s,” says Thomas Verkaeren, executive director at distributor O’Brother.

Maldoror is intended by du Welz as the first in a trilogy holding up a mirror to less savoury aspects of recent Belgian social and political history. 

The next film in that trilogy is Rubber, set in the period just before Congo became a Belgian colony under King Leopold II and when the ruthless exploitation of the country’s rubber industry began in earnest.

“Nobody knows what was going on at that time. We’ve done a lot of research. It was so insane,” the director observes of the colonial excesses of the period. 

The third film, Rex, will look at Belgium’s collaboration with the Nazis on the Russian front during the Second World War. The name comes from the far-right political party active in Belgium from the mid-1930s until the end of the Second World War.

Du Welz is again working with co-writer Domenico La Porta on the next two films, with a first draft of Rubber nearly done and a “strong idea” of how they plan to approach Rex.

“For me, it’s an opportunity to make three projects about a very, very troubled period of time in Belgium – it’s a very strange country!” the director comments of his homeland.

While the new projects are a “bit costly” – the intention is to shoot Rubber in Gabon – du Welz hopes that if Maldoror is well-received, the momentum will allow him to get the subsequent projects financed. He again expects to collaborate with Frakas on the films.

“My point is not to provoke or be sensationalist but to make cinema with very strong stories,” the director declares. 

Maldoror marks du Welz’s return to Venice for the first time since his tsunami-themed drama Vinyan screened on the Lido in 2008. 

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