CONNEXT 2023 opens its doors on new Flemish docs

The Flemish CONNEXT showcase, running 9-23 October, offers up 16 newly completed feature docs and two completed doc series, as well as two new projects (one feature, one series) and five works-in-progress (3 features, 2 series). All will be presented to the international sales, distribution, finance and festival professionals in attendance both in Antwerp and online. 

The event runs in-person 9-10 October for two days, while all projects will be accessible by the online professional audience throughout the 15 days of the event.

This year sees the return of the two awards that were presented in pre-COVID years: the CONNEXT Perfect Pitch and the CONNEXT Work In Progress awards. Both prizes consist of a post-production package offered by Flow Post-Production and an online ad package offered by Screen International, as well as 30 hours of intensive coaching by strategic publicist Kathleen McInnis. In the past few months, McInnis has already coached many of the teams that will pitch projects or present work in progress at this year’s CONNEXT. She will also present the teams during the sessions.

Project pitches: feature documentaries

• Feature doc debutant Marjolijn Prins’ Fantastique is produced by Mirna Everhard and Ellen De Waele of Serendipity Films. In the film,888 13-year-old Fanta wants to become a star acrobat. Mami Wata, a majestic goddess, decides to help Fanta to find her strength to pursue her dream as the only girl in a circus group in Conakry, Guinea.
• Porto Central by Daniel Lambo and produced by Lambo and Maarten Schmidt for Lambo Films and Story House Films is a collaborative documentary with a low carbon footprint in which filmmaker Daniel Lambo follows Shell’s drilling and construction of Porto Central in Brazil.

Project pitch: documentary series

• The Dark, The Mysterious Case of the Belgian Triangle, written and directed by Bram Conjaerts and Maarten Bernaerts (prod. Diplodokus), investigates the mysterious story of how, 30 years ago, the night skies of Belgium were lit up by what, at the time, seemed to be an invasion of UFOs.

Documentary feature works-in progress

• 2m2 is produced by Hans Everaert of Menuetto and directed by Volkan Üce, whose award-winning All-In wowed critics and public alike in 2022. The two square metres refers to the soil in which a Turkish immigrant to Belgium wants to be buried, representing a fundamental choice after a life between lived between two countries and two cultures. But will this soil be in Turkey or in Belgium? 
• In the frank documentary feature The Last Jewish Summer, written and directed by Thom Vander Beken and produced by Marc Goyens of Quetzalcoatl, Antwerp’s complicity in the persecution of its Jewish population during WWII is tackled head-on.
• Last Letters from my Grandma is written and directed by Olga Lucovnicova and produced by the prolific Frederik Nicolai of While We’re Here. The doc tells the personal story of director Lucovnicova’s journey to the Urals to investigate a long-held family secret. But it is an odyssey that is soon to be overshadowed by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Documentary series works-in progress

• Produced by Emmy Oost of Cassette for timescapes and with sales handled by First Hand Films, She They Us – Towards an Equal Future shows how seven people from the Low Countries are fighting discrimination at the intersection of gender, sexuality, colour, age, class and religion.
• The six-part The Vatican, written by Rik Torfs and Jo Badisco and directed by Kat Steppe, portrays the 2000-year-old global institution from within, focusing on its major challenges in the 21st century. The series is produced by Kristoffel Mertens of Panenka. 

Completed documentary features

• Ana + yek, written/directed by Zohra Benhammou and Romy Mana, and produced by Elisa Heene of Mirage) concerns two twins who seek a balance in their relationship after making vastly different life choices.
• In Sofie Benoot’s Apple Cider Vinegar, the director’s kidney stone operation propels her onto on a journey in search for the secrets of stones. What starts as a story about humans and stones slowly unfolds into a meditation on ecological grief.
• Beast! directed by Joost Laperre and produced by Bram Versteyhe for Lionheart Productions, details the story of reclusive former strongman Walter Arfeuille who contemplates his past and prepares a final bid for glory.
• Bye Mom! is written and directed by Marie De Hert & Ellen Pollard (prod. Borgerhoff & Lamberigts Tv) and concerns the bond between 102-year-old Rennie and her daughter Yvette. Their relationship is put to the test when Rennie’s health starts to deteriorate.
• Engel’s Dream, written and directed by Peter Woditsch (prod. Sophimages), tells the remarkable post-war life story of the eponymous protagonist who dreams of creating a museum of erotic art in the building where he used to run one of the most notorious brothels in Germany.
• Forbidden Pilgrimage, written and directed by Ellen Vermeulen, is produced by Peter Kruger and Ellen Vermeulen for Inti Films. In 1952, Marie-Louise Chapelle was the first French woman to stand on an unclimbed peak in the Himalayas. In 2022, the director retraced her steps to the summit in order to understand better this remarkable woman.
• Writer/director Pascal Garnier’s A Hiphop Minute (prod. Animal Tank) revisits New York in 1986 and its iconic rap artists to see how things have changed over the past 35 years, and asks if rap still has a future? Sales are handled by Reservoir Docs.
• The Diplodokus doc How Do You Spell Home, directed by Louisiana Mees and co-written with Wederik De Backer, follows 15 unaccompanied minors who have arrived in Belgium as refugees live in a community centre, where they must stay until they reach the age of 18. This documentary looks at their search for a sense of home away from home.
• Jan Hoet – The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, written and directed by Luc Vrydaghs (prod. Menuetto) tells the story of the legendary art curator Jan Hoet, who died in 2014.
• In The Jacket, written and directed by Mathijs Poppe (prod. Mirage), after a theatrical prop goes missing, the Palestinian instigator of the theatre show starts a nightly journey through the streets of Beirut only to be confronted with a city in crisis.
• The Clin d’oeil films documentary Kamay, written and directed by Ilyas Yourish and Shahrokh Bikaran and produced by Hanne Phlypo, Ilyas Yourish and Evelien De Graef, follows an Afghan Hazara as they seek justice after the death of their daughter at Kabul University. 
• Life Will Give You Pictures, written by Bart Maes & Aldine Reinink, directed by Aldine Reinink (prod. Zonderling) and pitched as a work-in-progress in 2022, concerns the majestic but dilapidated house that holds the gigantic, chaotic archive of three generations of photographers, most notably the 83-year-old Herman Selleslags.
• Slave Island is written by Jimmy Hendrickx & Jeremy Kewuan and produced by Kristian Van der Heyden of Harald House. The doc deals with the delicate topic of slave trading between families, according to the principles of Sumbanese culture and the Marapu religion.
• In This Is My Moment, written and directed by Lieven Corthouts and produced by Magalie Dierick and Emmy Oost of Cassette for timescapes, a young Eritrean cyclist wants to become the first black African to win a major race in Europe.
• Angie Obeid’s Yalla, Baba!, produced by Savage Film’s Bart Van Langendonck, tells of 34-four-year-old Angie who takes her 74-year-old father Mansour on a car journey from Brussels to Beirut, a trip he last made 42 years ago. But just as the road has changed, so will their relationship.

Completed documentary series

• DNA, written by Maarten Stuyck and directed by Lennart Stuyck & Maarten Stuyck (prod. Diplodokus), constitutes an investigation into the enormous opportunities and pitfalls offered by our ever-expanding knowledge of DNA.
• Draw for Change! is written by Guillaume Vandenberghe, Vincent Coen, Alisar Hasan, Nada Riyadh, Anna Moiseenko, Sama Pana, Karen Vázquez Guadarrama, Laura Nix and Alaa Amer, and directed by Alaa Amer, Alisar Hasan, Nada Riyadh, Anna Moiseenko, Sama Pana, Karen Vázquez Guadarrama and Laura Nix. Produced by Clin d’oeil films and sold by Autlook Film Sales, Draw for Change! presents female cartoonists and their drawings which offer a glimpse into some of the most pressing issues women face today.