20/12/2018 - After Violet, awarded at Berlin Film Festival in 2014, the Flemish filmmaker presents his second feature, starring Alba Rohrwacher and Lubna Azabal

4 years after Violet [+see also:
trailer
film profile], his first feature – which won an award at Berlin in the Generation 14plus section – the Flemish filmmaker Bas Devos returns with Hellhole [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Bas Devos
film profile], a story about different people living in Brussels, told via a series of home visits made by a GP to various suffering individuals lost in the European capital. The film will take part in the Panorama section at the next Berlinale (7 to 17 February 2019).

Brussels, European capital, 2016. Doctor Wannes’ home visits include trips to see the young Moroccan Mehdi, who reminds him of his own son, Joris – a fighter pilot on a mission in the Middle East – and an Italian woman called Alba, an interpreter for the European Parliament, looking for a way out of her loneliness and lethargy, mainly via drugs.

As the title suggests, the film is about modern Brussels, a disenchanted portrait of a city ravaged by attacks, soldiers on the streets and homeless refugees wandering around the city centre... A multi-faceted city of paradoxes.

In the role of the doctor is Willy Thomas (Vele Hemels, Fallow [+see also:
trailer
film profile]), starring alongside Hamsa Belarbi, in his on-screen debut, and the actresses Alba Rohrwacher (Happy as Lazzaro [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Alice Rohrwacher
film profile], Lucia's Grace [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], Ishmaël's Ghosts [+see also:
film review
trailer
Q&A: Arnaud Desplechin
film profile]) and Lubna Azabal (Tel Aviv on Fire [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Sameh Zoabi
film profile], Sofia [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Meryem Benm'Barek
film profile], Lola Pater [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile]).

As with his first feature, the director has entrusted the film’s photography to chief operator Nicolas Karakatsanis (Angel [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Koen Mortier
film profile], I, Tonya, Racer and the Jailbird [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Michael Roskam
film profile]), with whom he previously worked on his first feature, Violet. Hellhole was produced by Tomas Leyers, who also produced Violet for Minds Meet, after previously producing Lost Persons Area [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by Caroline Strubbe (selected at Cannes Critics' Week in 2009) and Little Baby Jesus of Flandr [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by Gust Van Den Berghe (selected at the Directors' Fortnight in 2010). Leyers also recently co-produced In Syria [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Philippe Van Leeuw
film profile] by Philippe Van Leeuw (Panorama section at Berlin in 2017).

(Translated from French)