Is it because of the ice age? Is it a question of money or guts? Last night, the Amsterdam cinema Het Ketelhuis hosted the so-called Spring Consultation for the tenth time.
This debate evening on burning film issues, organised by Ketelhuis and the Filmkrant, drew a full house with the challenging question 'What do Belgians have that we don't?' Because the Filmkrant suggests in its June edition that Belgian filmmakers are more raw and authentic. Think of the Oscar-nominated Bullhead By Michael R. Roskam.
Consider also the fact that Belgium has had a film in the Cannes competition four times in the last 10 years, while this year we had the participation of Borgman celebrated as if an ancient curse had been lifted. So?
So nothing yet, because those Belgian Cannes titles were all French-speaking and Belgium does not exist so notes Belgian forum member and producer Tomas Leyers. Here at the Spring Consultation, it is exclusively about Flemish cinema, with Pierre Drouot, director of the Flemish Audiovisual Fund (VAF) as a major guest on stage.
The latter is allowed to explain in detail how the VAF works, assesses applications and handles things differently, or not so much differently, from the Dutch Film Fund. There is a lot to say about that (VAF has few fixed criteria, for instance), but that does risk leading the evening astray.
Because finally, forum member Koen Mortier (producer and director) causes some hilarity by noting that his Brusselmans film adaptation Ex-Drummer had been rejected three times and that he had then scraped together the modest budget by other means. So he just kept going. The result is a film that is now regarded as one of those strong examples of Flemish cinema.
No wonder forum members, including producer Dries Phlypo (Moscow collision) and Dutch cameraman Richard van Oosterhout, who lives and works in Belgium, occasionally make merry about Dutch interest in concepts and formulas.
Perhaps therein lies the rub. As a jury member at the Netherlands Festival, Van Oosterhout had had the pleasure of seeing the 2012 Dutch annual production, and observed that too much of the same was being made. It is conceived and shot too much in the same way (30 shooting days is standard) and there is also too little focus on how form and content should relate. In Flanders, more struggle is needed to make a film. In the Netherlands, it lacks sharpness and drive. Someone else adds that Dutch filmmakers perhaps try to think too much along the lines of financiers and committee members.
A cultural difference? 'Calvinism versus Catholicism' someone in the audience shouts, to which Tomas Leyers soberly adds that the border between those two cultures still shows how far the ice had come in the last ice age.
Film Fund director Doreen Boonekamp, meanwhile also joined in, noted that she is happy to fund those cheeky artistic projects, but they have to be submitted.
Leyers recommends: don't go looking for formulas, because they don't exist. Motivating him himself is the paternal support of the VAF. This suggests to filmmakers: 'Don't be afraid to go down on your face, but try!' Mortier hears too little of the filmmaker's voice on this night. As consolation, VAF director Drouot may say that he did see Dutch films that touched him. Sky he was 'devastated' by, and something like 170 Hz he also did not yet see in Flanders.
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