26/02/2024 - The Belgian filmmaker is kicking off filming this week on her third feature film, toplined by the young French actress

This Monday saw filming commence on Vanja d’Alcantara’s 3rd feature film, Cap Farewell. The director was unearthed in 2010 by way of her first film Beyond the Steppes, which was selected in competition in Locarno and awarded the Jury Prize at the Marrakech Film Festival. She then released Kokoro [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] in 2016, which was an adaptation of a novel by Olivier Adam, starring Isabelle Carré in the lead role.

After exploring the steppes of Central Asia and the cliff landscapes of Japan in these two previous films, the director is now setting up shop in Belgium to follow Toni, a young 24-year-old woman who is released from prison and finds herself having to return home to live with her mother Betty, with whom relations are strained. Determined to reconnect with her daughter Anna, whom Betty has raised in her absence, Toni gets a job in her uncle’s brasserie nearby the port. But she soon finds herself mired once again in the smuggling shenanigans of her childhood sweetheart Max, who’s the reason she first went to prison, and who’s also Anna’s father. Pulled in all directions, Toni must fight to break free from this toxic environment and to take up her place as a mother and free woman.

The part of Toni is entrusted to young French actress Noée Abita (discovered in Ava [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Léa Mysius
film profile], nominated for the Best New Female Hope César via Slalom [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Charlène Favier
film profile], and seen last week in the Berlinale via My Summer With Irène [+see also:
film review
interview: Carlo Sironi
film profile]) and Betty is played by Canadian actress Pascale Bussières (who featured in Replay and Small Cuts), with the cast also including Belgian actors Olivier Gourmet (recently seen in The Assembly Line [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] and the series Grace of Heaven) and Matteo Simoni (recently seen in Wil [+see also:
film review
film profile]).

Cap Farewell is produced by Isabelle Truc on behalf of Iota Production, who’ll soon be releasing Elodie Lélu’s first fiction feature Rétro Therapy. The film is co-produced by Canadian producers Robert Lacerte and Marc Daigle of ACPAV and by Denis Vaslin of Volya Films in the Netherlands. It enjoys support from the Wallonia-Brussels Federation Film and Audiovisual Centre, Wallimage, Magellan Films, UMedia, RTBF, BeTV, Proximus, SODEC, Téléfilm Canada, Canadian distributor Maison 4:3 (who’ll be releasing the film in Canada), the Netherlands Film Fund and French distributor Eurozoom (who’ll distribute the film in France). The movie will be shot between 26 February and 5 April between Belgium and the Netherlands.

(Translated from French)