Rundskop
An animal feed thriller from the lowlands of Belgium. Jacky Vanmarsenille is a young farmer based in the Flemish province of Limburg. One day he is approached by an unscrupulous vet who offers him a stake in a dubious business venture with a notorious west-Flemish beef manufacturer. But then the murder of a police officer and an unexpected confrontation with a mysterious aspect of his past draws Jacky into a rapid maelstrom of unforeseen events with far-reaching consequences. Michaël R. Roskam’s feature film debut is set against the backdrop of the Belgian hormone mafia. The film’s storyline is loosely adapted from events surrounding the murder in 1995 of a vetinerary inspector named Karel Van Noppen. However, this film does not attempt to reconstruct this historical criminal case, rather, according to the director, ‘RUNDSKOPP relates to the hormones mafia like Hamlet relates to the Danish royal family’. Nonetheless, the film’s depiction of beef farming in Belgium is accurate. The film is set in Sint-Truiden, where Michaël R. Roskam himself grew up. His thriller about farmers, big shots and crooks is, he says, “a grotesque tragedy about fate and how our lives are sometimes determined by events over which we have no control. It is a film about people being driven to extremes.” In short – a film about everyday bovine madness.
details
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Runtime
129 min -
Country
Belgium, Netherlands -
Year of Presentation
2011 -
Year of Production
2011 -
Director
Michaël R. Roskam -
Cast
Matthias Schoenaerts, Jeroen Perceval, Jeanne Dandoy, Barbara Sarafian, Frank Lammers, Tibo Vandenborre, Sam Louwyck, Robin Valvekens, Baudouin Wolwertz, David Murgia, Erico Salamone, Philippe Grand’Henry, Kris Cuppens, Sofie Sente, Kristof Renson, Hein Van der Heijden, Stefaan Degand, Mike Reus, Ludmilla Kleijniak -
Production Company
Savage Film Productions -
Berlinale Section
Panorama -
Berlinale Category
Feature Film
pictures from the movie
Biography Michaël R. Roskam
Just out of high school, Michael R. Roskam (real name Michaël Reynders) goes to Saint-Luc Art School with the ambition to follow the same path as Hergé, Tim's father. Versatile, the future filmmaker knows how to use both the brush (and pencil) and the pen, so he hesitates for a long time to choose his path. With his graphic design diploma in hand, Roskam goes a different way than he had hoped. He started out as an editor for De morgen and Saatchi and Saatich magazines, but he didn't feel fulfilled. Secretly, he dreams of making films. So he finally enrolled at the Binger Filmlab in Amsterdam and graduated in 2005 with a master's degree in screenwriting.
Afterwards he began making short films. The first one, Haun, was released in 2002 and was soon followed by Carlo (2004) and One Thing to Do, a 25-minute drama about a trio in the middle of a discussion on a café terrace. During the shooting he meets Matthias Schoenaerts. The chemistry between actor and director is so good that they meet again a few years later for Bullhead (2012), a particularly original and exciting gangster film set in rural Belgium and the hormone trade. The film is a critical success, it has won prizes and even an Oscar for best foreign language film. Schoenaerts on the other hand becomes a well-known name.
Michael R. is approached by the American studios. Roskam then travels to the USA to shoot When Night Comes, a crime thriller with Tom Hardy, James Gandolfini, Noomi Rapace... and Matthias Schoenaerts.
-allocine.fr
Filmography Michaël R. Roskam
2014 The Drop