I am opening our weekend of international period set series with THIS IS NOT A MURDER MYSTERY from Belgium which will soon air on different broadcasters around Europe. Set in the flamboyant 1930s, it
The series will air on different European broadcasters
sees the group of world renowned Surrealist artists, who find themselves trapped in a lavish mansion with a mysterious serial killer on the loose. Pierre Gervais stars as René Magritte, Inaki Mur as Dalí, Geert Van Rampelberg as ELT Mesens, Florence Hall as American photographer Lee Miller, Frank Bourke as Man Ray, Oscar Högströn as Nash and Lauren Versnick as a newly deceased Sheila Legge. Donna Banya plays DC Mary Quant, Jonathan Delaney Tynan is Archibald Jukes and Mathilde Warnier is Georgette Magritte, wife of the Belgian artist. DCI Thistletwaite is played by Stephen Tompkinson.
This historical series has been gradually airing in the French speaking countries in the first quarter of the year. THE REBEL: THE ADVENTURES OF YOUNG GEORGE SAND (La rebelle, les aventures de la jeune George Sand) is set in 1831, when Aurore Dupin (Nine D'Urso) left Nohant to escape her husband's violence and join Paris, in full romantic ferment after the July Revolution, where she led a bohemian life before publishing her first novel, under the pseudonym George Sand. She will then establish herself as the first woman writer to make a living from her writing, achieving a string of literary successes and unleashing passions. A feminist before her time, wearing pants and smoking a pipe to enter cafes and cabarets, this great lover collected lovers, the most famous of whom were Alfred de Musset and Frédéric Chopin, without forgetting Marie Dorval, the great theater actress romantic. She became one of the great stars of her time, seducing the younger generation who adored her. The series is also known as George: Untamed Spirit.
I know it definitely isn't a very festive movie, but it does look fun which you can see below in the trailer for SURVIVE apocalyptic film which is out in cinemas January 10th next year. Julia and her loving husband are celebrating her son’s birthday on their boat in the middle of the ocean, but when a violent storm nearly capsizes them, the family awakes in a desert land. When the oceans disappear, danger is all that remains on the surface. Earth has undergone a tragic polarity reversal, draining water from the oceans. After tragedy befalls the family, Julia must save her children in a world where hungry creatures from the abyss hunt for fresh flesh. Starring Andreas Pietschmann, Émilie Dequenne, Lisa Delamar and Lucas Ebel, the movie is directed by Frédéric Jardin as a co-production between France and Belgium.
Out next week, August 9th in Northern America is First World War movie THE LAST FRONT an English language production directed and written in Belgium
The movie is out in selected theatres August 9th
by Julien Hayet-Kerknawi. The cast is led by Iain Glen and also includes Sasha Luss, Leander Vyvey, Joe Anderson, and Bulgarian star Julian Kostov. Amidst World War I's chaos, a grieving father turns hero, leading villagers to safety while evading a relentless enemy driven by vengeance. Peaceful life in a Belgian village is disrupted when a ruthless German soldier and his troops begin to terrorize the residents. An initially peace-loving local farmer, Leonard (Iain Glen), is driven to lead the resistance after a personal tragedy forces him into a battle he never wanted. Check out the moving trailer below and tell us what you think.
The last day of January, on the 31st Netflix will premiere their Belgian original WILL, a World War II set drama movie based on Jeroen Olyslaegers’s
This retro style movie will stream January 31st
book and inspired by his family’s actions during WWII!
Set in year 1942 this drama follows Wilfried Wils (Stef Aerts) and Lode Metdepenningen (Matteo Simoni),
young assistant police officers in Nazi occupied Antwerp. While they
support the resistance, they are forced to participate in the manhunt
for Jews in their city. Amid the chaos and violence, Wil falls in love
with Lode’s sister, Yvette (Annelore Crollet), but conflicting emotions push him to the brink. The film played in Belgium and Netherlands back in September!
ALFIE ALLEN, MARTIJN LAKEMEIER AND CHARLIE MURPHY TO LEAD
In a co production between Dutch streamer Videoland and Belgian Streamz, next year will bring us new eight part series SAFE HARBOR with gorgeous Dutch star Martijn Lakemeier (who is also playing the king of Holland in Videoland's Maxima series) in the lead alongside Alfie Allen, Charlie Murhpy and Jack Gleeson. The series follows gifted hacker Tobias (Allen) and his ambitious best friend Marco (Lakemeier), who are intent on cracking into the tech billionaires club. They are plucked from quiet obscurity and plunged headfirst into the chaos of organised crime when they cross paths with the Irish mob. Leading the family’s operations in Holland are Sloane (Murphy) and her brother Farrell (Gleeson), who enlist their services to hack into the security system of Rotterdam harbour, Europe’s largest shipping port, to secure the undetected deliveries of drug shipments.
A big-name star is being sought for a patriarch role, father to Sloane and Farrell, in the Irish mob, as Deadline reports.
And she will not be alone in the cast which will also include Richard Armitage, Emmett J. Scanlan, Joanna Lumley. Adapted from Harlan Coben's novel, the eight part series follows Maya Stern who is trying to come to terms with the brutal murder of her husband, Joe. But when Maya installs a nanny-cam to keep an eye on her young daughter, she is shocked to see a man she recognises in her house. Her husband, who she thought was dead…
Detective Sergeant Sami Kierce leads the homicide investigation into Joe’s death while grappling with secrets of his own. Meanwhile, Maya’s niece and nephew, Abby and Daniel, are trying to find the truth about their mother’s murder, several months earlier. Are the two cases connected?
MATTHIAS SCHOENAERTS
TO LEAD LE FAUX SOIR MOVIE
While you are enjoying his Django series which launched last week, Matthias Schoenaerts has just scored a lead role in LE FAUX SOIR WW2 movie drama according to Screen Daily! Set in 1943, it tells the story of when the Belgian resistance secretly produced a spoof version of the country’s leading newspaper, Le Soir, which had become a propaganda tool of the occupying Nazi forces. He will play Belgian resistance hero in the movie directed by Michael R. Roskam.
PARIS INTERZONE SERIES
POST WW2 PARIS SET SERIES
Speaking of WW2, the producers of Liaison series with Vincent Cassel and Eva Green, have set their next project: they will adapt James Campbell's
The book will be adapted into series
novel PARIS INTERZONE into mini TV series. As Variety reports, the ambitious series, which William Boyd is writing and is being co-produced by Ian Benson, will shed light on a counterintelligence program that was launched by the CIA and operated by a secret unit within the American embassy in Paris. Their mission was to infiltrate the literary cafes of the Left Bank in Paris and spy on expat American artists and authors. At that time in the U.S., under the McCarthy era, many authors, especially black and gay ones, were oppressed and jailed. The series will be a modern, glamorous noir thriller laced with a love triangle between a French editor and two American characters.
I am not quite sure how I have not noticed this one before, especially as it has been streaming for some time now, but it is never too late for me to inform you about it. THIEVES OF THE WOOD historical adventure series from Belgium is available over at Netflix in ten episodes, a Flemish Robin Hood type of story set in the middle of the 18th century and based on the 1957 novel "De bende van Jan de Lichte" by Louis Paul Boon. Matteo Simoni is playing real life figure Jan de Lichte who led outlaws in the 1747 Flanders with a secret headquarters in a forest. Stef Aerts, Jeroen Perceval, Tom van Dyck and other boys with delightfully Dutch sounding names also star in the cast.
THE SERIES IS SET IN 1747
After a traumatic time serving as a mercenary at the Silesian front, Jan deserts from the Austrian army. Destitute and exhausted, he returns home, to the Flemish region of Aalst. To his surprise, everything has changed beyond recognition. His village has been transformed into a French army encampment. His family and friends have been outlawed and banished to Kluisbossen forest. Jan joins the ramshackle gang of robbers led by his half brother Tincke. But in a country suffering under the yoke of poverty and exploitation, there's hardly anything left worth taking. Moved by these harsh living conditions, Jan manages to convince Tincke to see the bigger picture. Instead of stealing from each other, they should rob those who actually have money: the rich and the collaborators consorting with the French occupiers. Jan's ideas start to resonate and when a stagecoach is raided successfully, the ragtag bunch of scallywags develops into a real gang. The decision to share their booty with the poorest of the poor makes them popular, and their motto, "Voor gene chanterik peu" (not afraid of anyone), spreads across the land like wildfire. When the authorities catch wind of this, the ambitious city guard Baru declares war on Jan and his gang. Thanks to his dedicated police work, Baru manages to infiltrate the gang and capture Jan. During his captivity, Jan's popularity only increases. The gang is out for revenge and will do anything to liberate Jan: it's the beginning of a war that leads to outright revolution. Jan de Lichte becomes a mythical folk hero. Even after his public execution some people believe Jan to be still alive. Could this be true and could his example provide the inspiration to overthrow an ancient regime that's a thousand years old?
