Gutland
Govinda Van Maele
© Le Pacte
In this rural thriller, a stranger finds refuge in a small village. As he gradually integrates the community, it emerges that he's not the only one with a past to hide.
With : Frederick Lau,Vicky Krieps, Marco Lorenzini, Jens Fauser, Lucy Loschetter, Jos Gierens
scénario : Govinda Van Maele
image : Narayan Van Maele
son : Thomas Grimm-Landsberg
montage : Stefan Stabenow
musique : Mocke
scénario : Govinda Van Maele
image : Narayan Van Maele
son : Thomas Grimm-Landsberg
montage : Stefan Stabenow
musique : Mocke
Production : Gilles Chanial, Les Films Fauves
International sales: Nathan Fischer, Stray Dogs
International sales: Nathan Fischer, Stray Dogs
Govinda Van Maele, born in 1983 in Luxembourg, learned his trade inside the industry. His short film Josh (2007) travelled extensively on festivals, won several awards and went on to be the first Luxembourgish short to be shown on Canal+. His following short En Dag Am Fraien (A Day In The Open, 2012) won the Luxembourg Film Award. He has shot documentaries for television and the cinema and worked as a curator of exploitation cinema at the Luxembourg Cinematheque. He lives in Turkey and Luxembourg.
"The village - an isolated community surrounded by vast, imprisoning space - has always been an apt metaphor for the world. It is also an image often invoked for my home country, due to Luxembourg's small size and the omnipresent, very tangible sense of interconnectedness resulting from it, but also because of its history as a predominantly agricultural society, which still exerts a strong influence on the country's mentality. Gutland, literally “The Good Land”, is the area of the country I grew up in, the heartland of Luxembourg. Among the highest per capita income countries in the world, we live a peaceful existence where everyone minds their own business and the world's problems are kept at bay, but growing up there one can get the unsettling sensation of a vast underworld of discretely kept secrets where not everything is as it seems. Just as the narrative tackles themes that are personal, yet grounded in genre cinema, I found it important to make a film that is distinctly Luxembourgish, yet relatable to all." (Govinda Van Maele)
"The village - an isolated community surrounded by vast, imprisoning space - has always been an apt metaphor for the world. It is also an image often invoked for my home country, due to Luxembourg's small size and the omnipresent, very tangible sense of interconnectedness resulting from it, but also because of its history as a predominantly agricultural society, which still exerts a strong influence on the country's mentality. Gutland, literally “The Good Land”, is the area of the country I grew up in, the heartland of Luxembourg. Among the highest per capita income countries in the world, we live a peaceful existence where everyone minds their own business and the world's problems are kept at bay, but growing up there one can get the unsettling sensation of a vast underworld of discretely kept secrets where not everything is as it seems. Just as the narrative tackles themes that are personal, yet grounded in genre cinema, I found it important to make a film that is distinctly Luxembourgish, yet relatable to all." (Govinda Van Maele)