Actress Annick Van Couwenberghe has pursued several projects. She starred in the hit TV series Vloglab #Stories and Billie vs. Benjamin. More recently, she participated in episodes of Move On, on air on Vtm Go, and tv series Dertigers, which aired on VRT1 and VRTMAX and whose online version has received millions of views.
You’ll be at the Venice Film Festival with a new TV series project. Can you tell us about it?
Yes, it’s a neo-noir mini-series about a man, Michael, at rock bottom regaining his self-confidence by applying quotes, he picked up in a swingers’ club, to real-life situations. Flashbacks to Michael’s past reveal the reasons for his lack of self-confidence. Throughout the story he needs to start realising that he can turn his life around himself. But in the meantime he decides to refocus his energy on the happiness of others. He starts with Linda, who he met at the swingers’club where he works freelance behind the bar. She’s in a toxic relationship with John who is terrorising her. Not everything goes as planned but thanks to his warm and giving personality his network in his community kicks in to help. But it’s mainly the journey of a man who needs to discover his selfworth and open his eyes to the fact that nothing “magical” is happening when things work out. That it’s of his own doing.
Why did you choose the neo-noir genre?
When we were brainstorming about this new storyline, we always saw dark colours fitting the mood of the start of the series. This reflects perfectly the state of mind our main character is in at the beginning. Neo-noir cinematography brings out the despair Michael is in and also gives the perfect surroundings for a love story that seems doomed from the start. But is it ? Dark and rainy stands for the lack of hope and the bad prevailing over the good. As the story develops the cinematography can change to slightly brighter colours to take the audience subconsiously to more positive parts of the storyline. But will everything stay positive ? Or will the viewer be taken to darkness again ? This will be nice to play around with.
Where is it set?
We wrote it from our Belgian backgrounds and set it partly in Antwerp, but with flashbacks to Michael’s roots from a foreign country, not named but with a history of civil war. Both locations can be altered though. Basically, the story can be set in any big city with dark and gloomy fall and winter weather. And Michael can be any nationality, his personal story is more important than his etnicity. Which gives us a lot of freedom and possibilities to adapt as screenwriters.
You’ll also be presenting a new film set during the Christmas season to producers. Can you give us a sneak peek?
Yes, it’s a feelgood full feature tropical christmas movie. It’s about Isabelle and her workaholic husband Hugo who try to reconnect in a tropical christmas setting. This proves to be more challenging than expected, but luckily they have the help of the warm, quirky and chaotic family of Hugo’s co-worker Giovanni Dimarco. In Belgium we love to celebrate Christmas elaborately but there are not a lot of original christmas movies made. We wanted to write a family movie you can look at with a smile, during the holiday season, which leaves you feeling happy and relaxed. We have had some very positive reactions to our script so we hope to find fundings soon to have it made.
Both projects were also presented at the Cannes Film Market. How is pre-production going—which is the most difficult part of producing a film or TV series?
Well, we get good reactions to our script for the movie and idea for the series and that gives a lot of interested parties to co-produce. But the most difficult part is to get everybody connected and in contact to talk together and get a global funding realised. We are still very new to this side of the business so we are still working on our network and our prominence. We have to put in more work than more known screenwriters which is normal. Trust must be earned, but we definitely feel that we are moving forward, small but sure steps forward.
What do you love most about the Venice Film Festival?
It’s a very “open” film festival. And what I mean by that is that new filmmakers are aible to get accreditations to the festival and mingle with more seasoned filmmakers at the same venues. Which creates a very open feeling. It’s very well organised, structured and of course the city of Venice is a beautiful setting. You have to navigate to the Lido island by waterboat which makes it unique to other film festivals. Everybody has to take the boats to come to the festival and this makes the arrival of the red carpet-guests pretty special. They arrive by boat, go to the Excelsior Hotel and do their walk to the red carpet from there by foot throught the street which brings them very close to the fans who are waiting there to catch a glimpse. Summer, warm temperature, waterboats and stars : a perfect combination, right !
