Film partnerships in Flanders sometimes start in surprising ways. The collaboration between director Marjolijn Prins (whose new feature doc project Fantastique won a Perfect Pitch award at CONNEXT this week) and producer Mirna Everhard from Serendipity Films can be traced to when they worked in the same bar.
Prins had first come to Serendipity (whose CEO is Ellen De Waele) with the project before Everhard joined.
“I remember than when I applied for a job with Serendipity, I asked her [Prins] about it… I was never thinking that we were going to work together,” Everhard says. Now, the pair have spent more than three years working on the new documentary.
The director first encountered Fanta, the young female protagonist of the doc, through a friend who happened to be married to an acrobat from Guinea. This friend was from Guinea originally but was based in Flanders. He was one of the founders of circus group Amoukanama,
“Through them, I got to know Amoukanama,” the director recalls. “The moment I visited their shows and I heard their stories, I was super-fascinated by this young group of motivated acrobats, working in Guinea with very little materials but still making the best shows.”
The performers were all male. Initially, Prins intended to make a film about the youngest person in the group. At that stage, there were only boys involved. However, when watching the acrobats rehearsing on the beach, there was a magical moment when she spotted Fanta, then only 9 years old. “She was this little girl who appeared on the sidelines…She started doing these incredible tricks. She was a contortionist. We were watching the very first steps of her admission into the group…”
Prins was determined to find out more about her. She discovered from Fanta’s mother that the little girl was born “hyper flexible” and had been doing the acrobatics since almost before she could walk. There was one trick which involved her flipping her legs back over her head.
That was almost five years ago. Fanta is now 14 and has been going through puberty.
“The film has been growing over the years,” the director reflects on the many challenges Fanta has faced. When she was nine and still a kid, her family thought it was “cute” that she was performing all these physical feats. However, when they discovered she wanted to pursue a professional career in the circus, they were resistant. After all, she had jobs to do in the house and she needed to go to school. It wasn’t the convention for little girls to follow their dreams. Some from the country have made money through the circus – but they have almost always been boys.
The filmmakers used the hiatus in shooting caused by the pandemic to re-think what the doc was about. It had started as a short but Prins realised she wanted to do something more ambitious. The early intention had been to target the film at kids but they now felt they could reach a broader and older audience.
“We really used Covid as a time for development,” says Everhard. “At the beginning, we were really stressed by it because we wanted to grasp her [Fanta] at a certain age before her puberty. [But] now, having lost that time, we see that as an asset because she is right now in a moment of her life which is way more interesting.”
Fanta is turning from a child into a woman. Expectations at what she might be able to achieve are changing. The filmmakers feel their story now has more emotional depth. “It really shows the complexities of emancipation through the eyes of a young girl who is finding her own voice,” the director suggests. “Her body is changing. There is a really physical element to being an acrobat. You need strength. It’s not really an easy mission or time for her.”
Several distributors are already abroad, among them O’Brother in Belgium and Gusto in the Netherlands as well as other buyers across Europe. Some specialise in kids’ content. Other are more used to handling art house fare.
Prins is soon to return to Guinea to resume filming and says she is “very impatient” to get back there. The aim is to have the film finished by the beginning of 2025 and then to start looking for festival berths.
“The film is really in the end about empowerment. It is not only for kids but for everybody…”
When the doc is ready to be launched, the filmmakers plan to work with everybody from circus groups to schools in promoting it.
Intriguingly, the film will have a fictional, magical realist component. The filmmakers are working with Cameroonian filmmaker Cyrielle Raingou (who won an IFFR Tiger award for Le spectre de Boko Haram this year) who will be a co-writer on the part of the film dealing with fictional goddess Mami Wata, who gives Fanta inspiration as she pursues her dream. The idea is to shoot the documentary part of the film first and then for Prins to work with Raingou.
The VAF (Flanders Audiovisual Fund) came on board the project early on. Other partners include VraiVrai Films, The Film Kitchen, Stenola Productions, Les films du préau, Fonds de Soutien Cinéma and Audiovisuel Region Nouvelle-Aquitaine.
