Flemish producer Bart Van Langendonck of Savage Film talks to Business Doc Europe about two of his doc projects at RE>CONNEXT 2020; Four Brothers, about lives of of four Ukrainian brothers torn apart by war, and Parked Life, which examines the acute sense of isolation felt by a long distance lorry driver.
“I go way back with Pieter-Jan who was introduced to me at a time when he had just come out of film school,” Bart Van Langendonck observes of Four Brothers director Pieter Jan De Pue. “He had made a brilliant, visually stunning short film called Eau. For a school work it was something with incredible production and stylistic value.”
He continues: “I missed the story in his approach but it was clear that Pieter-Jan was a very visual filmmaker, so when it came to making a documentary in Afghanistan (The Land of the Enlightened, 2016) I was immediately hooked about the way that he would approach it visually. The major missing element was the story, the dramatic line in the film, which he grasped gradually while shooting the film over a period of almost seven years.”
De Pue’s project Four Brothers tells how, when the Ukrainian conflict escalated in Donbass, two of the siblings became enemies fighting on opposite sides. A third was adopted by Americans at the age of one and, now 14, tries to understand the conflict from afar. The fourth, confined to a wheelchair after a serious accident, is trying to keep the family together.
The €1.2 million film is in production and 56% financed. Delivery is expected early 2022. At RE>CONNEXT producer Van Langendonck is looking for pre-sales, sales agents and co-producers.
“Yeah, it’s great,” he says. “Every time Pieter-Jan goes to the Ukraine, he comes back with [more] brilliant images and we have 5 more minutes of the film after two months. That’s how we gradually move about in this case of Four Brothers… We move on. I look for financing. We get some more financing together. We shoot two more months. We edit. And gradually this film comes to life.”
Peter Triest’s feature doc Parked Life is fully financed and currently in post-production. With delivery set for Winter 2020, Van Langendonck is looking for a sales agent and pre-sales during RE>CONNEXT. Back in 2016, the project picked up the Mediafonds Documentary Award at IDFA, valued at €125,000.
In the 80-minute film, for lorry driver Petar the world of highways, industrial zones and parking lots is a hard place to stay sane, and the audience is offered a delicate observation of a man who feels disconnected and lost in the world.
“It sounds quite simple, a truck driver who is a metaphor for all the European truck drivers in Europe, but he [Triest] managed to find a story along the way when it appeared that the guy was losing the ties with his family and going through a divorce with his wife,” says Van Langendonck. “So this became the main story of the film rather than his life on the road.”
“He is a great director in terms of how to handle his characters, his crew and even the budget,” the producer continues. It is quite rare for a filmmaker to be able to work inside a given budget.”
“It’s a film that will do very well on the festival circuit,” he adds.
Van Langendonck articulates part of the risk in committing to a long-term documentary project, whether as a director or a producer. “Things change in people’s lives. It has happened to me two times when I wasn’t able to deliver. Your character dies or ends up in jail, or his life changes. It’s something that you have to take into account and look for a solution for right from the start. You have to think about it. I think about it more as it has happened me.”
At RE>CONNEXT Savage Film is also representing Fleur Boonman’s music doc Confessions to dEUS, described by the director as “a cinematic impression of the 2019 ‘The Ideal Crash’ tour with a look back at 20 years of ideals and crashes of the fans of [the band] dEUS.”
