UPDATE

My first goal of € 6.000. is reached, a huge THANK YOU to all for your support!

NEW GOAL : € 8.000.! GO GO GO!

Today thanks to you the shooting is assured. Now we aim for the next goal, € 8,000, which will allow me to pay the team and the actors. In this business we work a lot for the sake of art, but even artists have to pay their bills!

Thank you in advance !

JUST MARRIED, WHAT IS IT?

"Just Married" is a short film of about ten minutes, written on a summer's day under the sun of Provence, just for fun. After some rewriting of the screenplay, a simple exercise in style became the creative engine behind reaching a completed script.

Today, I look forward to creating the images that will tell the story, and this is where you come in!

THE SYNOPSIS

Unique decor: The marital chamber. A unique point of view: From the inside of the bedroom closet. Everything begins and ends with the wedding dress and the brooch, offered to the bride by her mother "for a happy marriage". The placement of symbolically and emotionally charged objects that crystallize the implacable fatality of a marriage that breaks down.

But wait, the outcome may surprise you!

THE GENESIS

This is the story of a 38-year-old antique dealer questioning her future. It is a self-portrait, in 2008, when a chance meeting led me to work in film, and since then, the cinema and I have not left each other. After beginning as a production director and prop master in advertising, I wrote, directed, and produced documentaries, a TV magazine, and many corporate films.

For three years, I have found my passion in the genre of fiction. After studying film history and participating in writing workshops, I gave birth to my first script for a short film entitled, "The Father, the Son and the Sane". I also wrote a short and more conceptual script entitled, "Just Married”.

"The Father, the Son and the Sane" received the First Prize at the Brussels Short Film Festival Screenplay Competition in 2016 and the Diamond Award (first prize) at the European Independent Film Award Screenplay Competition in 2017. The film is currently in the funding phase and I have found an excellent producer to work with.

But…

For some time, "Just Married", slept peacefully in a drawer, barely a sketch. At the beginning of this year, I found it in the drawer, removed the dust, and I got back to work. Inspired by Raymond Queneau and his book Exercises of Style, I took great pleasure in writing a story that chronicles the passage of an ordinary marriage to an extraordinary denouement.

My screenplay was ranked in the top 6, out of 300 scripts received, at the Screenplay Competition of the Festival of European Cinema in Lille 2018. Hooray!

I subsequently put together a talented team ready to join me in this adventure, and now, I'm calling on you to help us bring this story to the big screen.

DIRECTOR’S APPROACH

One axis, the camera is fixed, each scene is composed like a painting and shot in sequence.

The image is composed like a scene from an Edward Hopper painting. There are simple geometric shapes, large areas of color and the use of architectural elements whose vertical, horizontal and strong diagonal lines structure the camera frame. Details of the interior decor will change to reflect the styles of the time. The walls are repainted, the photos reflect the passage of time, and the images of the couple gradually fade behind those of the children and various objects from everyday life…

The couple has no name, nor do the children. The characters are anonymous and archetypal. The neutral, impassive eye of the camera emphasizes the banality of the marriage, the sadness, the distance between the characters, the erosion of communication over time that damages everything in its path, solitude…

The place of the camera inside the closet is significant. There is a boundary between the spectator-voyeur and the intimacy of the characters, as materialized by the closet door that opens and closes like a shutter. Various impressions emerge from the filmic space: Silence, tension, exclusion, and melancholy...

As with Hopper, whose paintings have a photographic and cinematographic tension, there is a feeling that something terrible has just happened or will happen.

The little ritornello ("Something blue, something new, something old, for a happy marriage..."), also contributes to this impression: Merry and hopeful at first, disturbing at the end.

THIS IS NOT (YET) A TRAILER

REFERENCES AND INSPIRATION

THE ACTORS

Valérie Gimenez - The bride

A graduate in cinema at Paris 3 Sorbonne Nouvelle, this French native began her training as an actress at the Conservatory of Liège (ESACT). Passionate about theater, she co-wrote several theatrical works (“I understood you” with Sinda and Samir Guessab, “You will tell them” with Sébastien Foucault and “Nourrir l'Humanité it's a job” with Charles Culot and Alexis Garcia), her collaborators of whom are well known playwrights in Belgium and abroad. She also conducts theater workshops with young students, a collaboration that yielded the play entitled “Neighbors “, produced by the Collective La Brèche.

Valérie also participates in radio drama, and has acted in several short films in Belgium, including Mathilde Mazabrard's “Le marchand de Sable”. I met Valérie on the set of “Le Marchand de Sable”, a film I had the good fortune to work on. During this time, I quickly recognized her as the “bride” character.

Olivier Englebert - The groom

In his first life, Olivier Englebert studied civil engineering and began a career as a civil engineer. Although this career path pleased his parents, it was not giving him the sense of fulfillment he desired. Before a midlife crisis set in, he decided to follow his all consuming passion for the seventh art. He began his acting career in fiction, playing both small and large parts in Belgian, French and English productions. His acting credits are: Series (“Alain Brunard's e-Legal” - RTBF, “The Forest of Delinda Jacobs”, “The Missing by Tom Shankland” - BBC), short films (“Love Bites” by Nicolas Montfort, “The End of the World” by Michaël Havenith) and feature films (“Olivier Masset-Depasse Duelle” and “The Mad Story of Max and Leon du Palma Show”). He recently starred in a vampire movie that may well enter the canon of the genre, “The Shadow Within”, directed by Tiago Mesquita, and starring Lindsay Lohan!

In short, Olivier is an autodidact who channels his diverse life experiences and background into his work as an actor. He is always eager and willing to take risks, and collaborate with directors in the art of storytelling.