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PRODUCTION Belgium

Kodja’s homecoming in Schoukens’ Marieke, Marieke!

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A 20-year-old girl, who has grown up too quickly and seeks in the arms of older men a replacement for her prematurely deceased father, and a woman who no longer knows how to love are at the heart of Sophie Schoukens’ debut feature Marieke, Marieke!, which finished shooting on May 29.

The film, which takes its title from Jacques Brel’s only bilingual song, is a Belgian production backed by both the French Community of Belgium Film Centre and the Vlaams Audiovisual Fund.

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Initiated by Sophimages in Brussels, the film is co-produced by Pallas Films (Irina Palm [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Sam Garbarski
interview: Sébastien Delloye
film profile
]
, Tulpan [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
) in Germany, where it received support from Mitteldeutsche Medienförderung.

Marieke, Marieke! marks the homecoming of young Belgian actress Hande Kodja, who after studying in Paris won acclaim in Patrick Grandperret’s Murderers [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
, Captain Ahab [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
and Family Values [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
. The cast also includes an impressive Jan Decleir, a prominent figure in Flemish film (recently seen in Sister Smile [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
and soon to appear in Nabil Ben Yadir’s Les Barons), and Barbara Sarafian (discovered in Moscow, Belgium [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
and set to star in Geoffrey Enthoven’s Over the Hill Band).

After the success of their illustrious Belgian predecessors, including Marion Hänsel and Chantal Ackerman, this new project confirms the remarkable and celebrated rise of Flemish women directors. Their films often focus on women’s private lives, from the lonely child in Caroline Strubbe’s Lost Persons Area [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
to the young woman that is Marieke, the missing and imagined runaway in Fien Troch’s Unspoken [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
and the pre-teen in Dorothée van den Berghe’s My Queen Karo (set to be released shortly).

Another common denominator is their presence at international festivals, recently in Cannes Critics’ Week, and previously at Venice, Toronto and San Sebastian. We’ll have to wait and see how Marieke, Marieke! fares.

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(Translated from French)

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