– The Walloon regional audiovisual investment fund has just announced the results of its 128th session, shining a spotlight on up-and-coming Belgian talent
Directors Nicolas Boucart (© Aurore Engelen) and Mathieu Volpe (© Aurore Engelen)
Following its 128th session, the Walloon regional investment fund for audiovisual and gaming, Wallimage, is backing eight new projects, including two ambitious first fiction features coming from Belgium.
Trained as a stagehand, Nicolas Boucart first made his mark with his short film Icare, which won the Magritte Award for Best Short Fiction Film in 2019. A regular on set, he’s since been developing his first feature film, Devolution, which is a bold piece of speculative fiction revolving around a dystopia which thrusts us into a post-apocalyptic world where a virus has triggered a “devolution” of the human species, reducing people to quadrupeds. It follows a pregnant young woman who makes a discovery which just might spark hope. The film is being produced and overseen by Tarantula Belgique. It will be co-produced in Italy by Propaganda, and in France by Same Player, with support from the Wallonia-Brussels Federation, RTBF, BeTV, Proximus and the Belgian Tax Shelter, and, in Italy, from the Italian Ministry of Culture, Lazio Innova and the Tax Credit initiative. International sales are handled by Elle Driver, while shooting is slated for late 2026 or early 2027, between Italy and Belgium.
Another debut fiction feature on this session’s slate, L’Or Rouge by Mathieu Volpe, is in a very different vein yet shares two points in common with Devolution. Like Nicolas Boucart, Mathieu Volpe won the Magritte Award for Best Short Fiction Film for his movie Eldorado in 2025, and filming will also partly take place in Italy. The filmmaker comes from the documentary world (primarily turning heads with the short film Notre territoire, and then An Italian Youth [+see also:
film review
interview: Mathieu Volpe
film profile]). This new social drama sees him returning to his preferred themes, following the journey of a Senegalese mother called Mariama who infiltrates a ghetto of agricultural workers in southern Italy to find her son. L’Or Rouge is produced by Les Films du Fleuve in Belgium, in co-production with Les Films de Pierre in France, with support from RTBF, BeTV, Proximus, the Tax Shelter, the Wallonia-Brussels Federation, and France’s CNC. The film will be released in Belgium by Cinéart.
Wallimage is also backing the highly anticipated diptych by French filmmaker Antonin Baudry, which is dedicated to Général de Gaulle and which consists of La Bataille de Gaulle : L’âge de fer and La Bataille de Gaulle : J’écris ton nom, with Simon Abkarian in the title role (read our news). The work is being produced by Pathé Films and TF1 Films, in co-production with Beside Productions in Belgium, who are also receiving support for the international series, The Emperor’s Stone, which won backing from the European Alliance Fund, involving France Télévisions, ZDF and Rai.
Another TV project set to receive support is Faits Réels, produced by Jungle Films, which is a double mini-series (two times 2×45 minutes) scheduled to air on M6 and inspired by headline-stealing criminal cases – namely the 1993 nursery school hostage situation in Neuilly, otherwise known as Human Bomb, and the so-called Grêlé case of a gendarme serial killer who made front-page news in the 1980s and 1990s. Filming on the Grêlé has just begun in the Liège region, with Fred Testot, Anne Marivin and Laura Sépul in the cast.
Last but not least, Wallimage is backing three very different animation projects: Lascars 2 by Laurent Nicolas, produced in France by Millimages, who are partnering with Umedia Production in Belgium; Un monde à part, which is the debut feature by Carmen Cordoba, produced in Spain by La Fiesta PC and co-produced in Belgium by Belvision; and finally Golem by Czech animation filmmaker Jiri Barta, produced by Hausboot Production in the Czech Republic, by Les Contes Modernes in France, and by Tarantula in Belgium.
(Translated from French)
