EXCLUSIVE: The story of the Heysel Stadium football disaster, when 39 Juventus fans died just prior to the 1985 European Cup Final against Liverpool, is to be told in an ambitious new €7 million feature film.

It will follow the stories of different characters from the countries involved on the tragic day.

In The Crowd, to be directed by Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire [pictured], is being packaged by Paris-based packager and financier Backup Films. Anna Lena Films (Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait) is producing.

The idea is to structure the film as a  European coproduction involving all the countries involved - Belgium (where the match was played), Italy (home to Juventus) and the
UK (home to Liverpool).

Backup is also packaging a very different football-themed film: Goal Of The Dead, a two-part zombie comedy by Benjamin Rocher and Thierry Poiraud that is being produced by Capture The Flag Films.

Other Backup projects include El Frances by Olivier van Hoofstadt (to add an international distributor imminently), El Instructor by Santiago Otheguy (to attach a German co-producer here), and JB Andrea’s thriller Brotherhood of Tears (to add a Luxembourg co-producer).

Jean-Baptiste Babin and David Atlan-Jackson’s Backup has supported more than 400 films since 2002.

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