Pic: Randy110912 Creative Commons License via Wikimedia Commons
It was a disaster which shocked football fans everywhere and caused rigorous new safety measures to be imposed on football stadiums. Now, the Heysel Stadium tragedy is to be revisited in Heysel, Bloc Z, an epic new six part docu-series announced in Cannes this week. The first episodes of the series should be ready to be broadcast by late next year, just before the World Cup in Qatar takes place.
Belgian tax shelter financier and producer Scope Invest is one of the backers of the project which will be directed by leading Belgian film and TV director Jan Verheyen (who will also take a producer credit).
Scope, one of the most prolific financing outfits in Belgium, is in Cannes this week with the festival’s opening film, Leos Carax’s Annette starring Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard, which shot partly in Belgium with Scope financing.
The company’s creative director Genevieve Lemal is to produce the series which also has financing from Wallimage.
Events at the Heysel are not disputed. Liverpool were playing Juventus in the European Cup Final in the summer of 1985. Juventus supporters who were trying to escape from the Liverpool fans were crushed against a collapsing wall. 39 were left dead.
The subjects featured in the doc series include an Italian who lost his father and grandfather, a repentant English hooligan who has now became a pastor. Other witnesses speak of the poor facilities and shoddy security at the ground.
What should have been festive event turned into one of the greatest tragedies in European football history.
The project was originally envisaged as a dramatic feature to be directed by Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire. This has been in development for six or seven years. However, it was eventually decided to make it as a documentary. When Lemal approached Jan Verheyen about directing the project, he leapt at the chance. He is not a passionate football fan. His interest in the project is more to do with the intense debate the tragedy provoked around the nature of personal responsibility.
Adds Lemal: “That was one of the big issues discussed at the trial…who is responsible when there are hundreds of people behaving wildly. How can 26 people be responsible for hundreds of people being wounded?”
The new series is based on the book ‘Heysel, a European tragedy’, by Jean-Philippe Leclaire. It is being made for RTL Belgium. “We were supposed to do this live action film but the real images are so strong,” Lemal commented of the decision to take the project down the docs-series route.
