Geoffrey Macnab

The feature documentary Ana + kek tells a very personal story, about twin sisters whose beliefs have taken them on very different paths. “I felt I was too close to the subject,” says Zohra Benhammou of why she turned to Romy Mana to co-direct the film. “I needed someone who [could] take a distance [from it], to guide me into the story.”

Filmmaker Mathijs Poppe, whose new documentary The Jacket screened at the Flemish CONNEXT showcase, has been at the Gent Festival this week, just down the road from Antwerp, but he hasn’t been showing a movie. “I work here as an editor. It’s really just taking formats, making DCPs for the cinemas thinks like that, just technical work,” Poppe tells BDE of his current “side hustle” between making his own movies.

This week Sarah Lederman was singled out by Oscar-nominated Belgian director Lukas Dhont as one of the Future Five group of highly talented emerging filmmakers from the region. Lederman was the sole docmaker. “People say sometimes about me that I see things they didn’t see,” Lederman reflects to BDE, “I look deeply into things, I love details and I just love the things that make the everyday special.”

Film partnerships in Flanders sometimes start in surprising ways. The collaboration between director Marjolijn Prins (whose new feature doc project Fantastique won the Perfect Pitch Award at CONNEXT this week) and producer Mirna Everhard from Serendipity Films can be traced back to when they worked in the same bar. The director and producer explain all to BDE.

What starts as a story about humans, kidney stones and stones in a geological sense, slowly unfolds into a meditation on ecological grief. “We always say that stone is silent, it is dead. I wanted to do something opposite and bring it very much to life. The kidney stone is a metaphor for that,” says director Benoot.

Hans Everaert is at the Flanders showcase this week with 2m2 by Volkan Üce, whose 2021 documentary All-in was received rapturously by critics and audiences alike. Currently in pre-production, 2m2 is a story about burial, immigration, religion and commerce and focuses on Turkish undertaker based in Belgium. “He has a special kind of feeling for humour without losing sight of content and the theme,” Everaert says of director Üce.

Louisiana Mees-Fongang’s feature doc debut concerns 15 unaccompanied minors living in a community centre who had previously arrived in Belgium as refugees. “Part of their reality is complex and hard. They had tough moments. But, at the same time, they’re young, active and full of energy and potential. This is also something I really found important to show,” the director tells Business Doc Europe.

In his 2018 feature documentary Breathless, Daniel Lambo took on the asbestos industry. In his new project Porto Central, (a documentary feature pitch at Connext), Lambo has Shell and the oil industry firmly in his sights. “Usually, that is a motor for my work. When I get kind of angry, I need to do something with this anger,” Lambo tells BDE of what motivates him as a filmmaker.

It’s over 30 years now since the night skies of Belgium were lit up by what seemed to be an invasion of UFOs. All these decades later, there is still fierce debate as to whether the visitation from the UFOs happened for real or whether it was an elaborate hoax. Bram Conjaerts’ new doc series project attempts to get to the bottom of the unsolved mystery. The director talks to BDE.

Emmy Oost (Cassette for timescapes) is one of Belgium’s most innovative producers whose work invariably has a strong sense of political and social engagement. One such work is the new doc series She They Us - Towards an Equal Future by Sam Peeters, Heleen Declercq and Zaïde Bil which profiles seven people facing discrimination because of gender, sexuality, colour, age, class and religion. The producer talks to BDE.