15/02/2013 - Jan Verheyen is back with Het Vonnis, a judiciary drama with Flemish movie stars Koen De Bouw, Johan Leyden and Veerle Baetens

Jan Verheyen (photo) began shooting his new film this week, Het Vonnis (The Judgment), a judiciary drama "Erin Brockovich style", according to his own words. The film follows a deeply scarred man (Koen de Bouw, a very safe bet in the Flemish cinema industry, whom we saw in Dossier K [+see also:
trailer
film profile] and Loft [+see also:
trailer
film profile]), who decides to mete out his own of justice when his wife’s murderer is released because of a legal technicality. At the bar, Johan Leysen (seen recently in the European web series The Spiral) confronts Veerle Baetens, a rising star after her performance in Felix Van Groeningen’s last film The Broken Circle Breakdown [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Felix van Groeningen
interview: Felix Van Groeningen
interview: Felix Van Groeningen
film profile], presented this week in Berlin. We will in fact see her again in the highly anticipated BBC series, The White Queen (entirely filmed in Belgium), in which she plays the role of Marguerite of Anjou.

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It is a return to a first love for Jan Verheyen, after the interlude Zot van A, a romantic chorus comedy, who comes back to a more sombre film, between action scenes and scenes from the trial. He in fact wanted to offer a realistic depiction of trials held in Assize Courts, and sat in on several sessions during the film’s preparation. Verheyen is a serious contender in the Belgian box-office ratings. He began in television with the series Team Spirit and Vermist [+see also:
trailer
film profile], both of which he brought to the big screen. His last movie, Zot van A, brought 420,000 Flemish spectators to the theatres in 2010. In 2009, Dossier K also chalked up over over 400,000 spectators.

Filming, which began on February 11^th, will last 30 days, between Gand, Brussels, Anvers and Bruges, where the trial scenes will be shot. On the production side, we find Peter Bouckaert and Eyeworks (Ben X [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Nic Balthazar
interview: Peter Bouckaert
film profile], The Alzheimer Case [+see also:
trailer
film profile], Dossier K, Time of my Life [+see also:
trailer
film profile], Zot van A). Het Vonnis, which received funding from the Flanders Audiovisual Fund, will be distributed by Kinepolis, and is expected to appear on screens in October, 2013. 

(Translated from French)