In a near future when overcrowding and famine have pushed governments to impose a drastic one-child policy, 7 septuplet sisters are living in hiding. In turn during the week, the sisters take on the identity of one person: Karen Settman. Until the day Monday disappears.

This is a dystopic thriller with multiple strengths: an unpredictable script, an exceptional performance of seven characters by Noomi Rapace, a stellar supporting cast including Glen Close and Willem Dafoe, and a significant Walloon involvement, in particular through special effects by people from Benuts who had a blast tweaking the settings.

Original and explosive, Tommy Wirkola's film turned out to be a hit, successfully drawing an unexpected number of 1,863,356 viewers in France.

Shooting a Nicolas Cage film set in the US in Belgium? At first sight, the project seems crazy!

It didn’t stop Umedia from bringing it here when they realised no one would finance it on the other side of the Atlantic. They offered young director Panos Cosmatos the means to fulfill his dream freely. This feature film, mainly filmed in Wallonia with a Belgian crew, Belgian actors turned out to be a great success. Selected for the Sundance 2018 festival, it created buzz and was then selected for the prestigious Cannes Directors' Fortnight. No one could have predicted it a few months earlier!

Psychedelic and excessive in all its aspects, Mandy may divide viewers, both genre fans and not, but it is now considered to be the best Nicolas Cage film of the last 10 to 20 years. In gender-sensitive circles, it has become an endless source of intense conversations. The lasting effects of this unique production have not just been for the many technicians who worked on the film but also for the Walloon companies. This is the kind of rare experience that unlocks new perspectives.

Speaking of the greatest genre directors, let’s mention the Spanish one, Jaume Balaguero. The Nameless, Darkness, Rec 1, 2 and 4, Fragile, Sleep Tight, and countless titles that make fans shiver with excitement. It’s a sure thrill that the Catalan filmmaker filmed part of his new feature film in Wallonia.

This project also marked the first collaboration of Jean-Yves Roubin (Frakas) with brilliant Irish producer Brendan McCarthy (Fantastic Films), and leading to two other promising films named Sea Fever and Vivarium. A few Walloon technicians are at the core of the co-production including Mikros Liège for the special effects. As the cherry on the cake, there will be a Wallimage-funded VR companion using the technology of Mikros Liège and directed by Jaume Balaguero.

Hurriedly released in Spain, Muse was not as successful as its predecessors. It is a typical but still devilishly effective dive into a dark and dangerous universe of merciless reigning Muses, and an inspiring film.

If you’re looking for a film that made Wallimage a landmark in the genre community, Raw is probably the one.

With forty days of production in Wallonia, VFX signed by Mikros and sound post-produced at l'Équipe de Rosières studio, Jean-Yves Roubin (Frakas) used all the talents of our region to support his French and Swiss partners (Rouge International, Petit film, and Hugo).

This resulted in a subversive, strikingly realist film about a young vegetarian girl and veterinary student in touch with impulses that she can’t control.

Raw is a genre and a popular arthouse film and work which introduced director Julia Ducourneau, who quickly became iconic in France, and young actress Garance Marillier. This is a lot for a first film, but it’s not all: the film also triggered intense discussions between fans of classical genre films and categorical transgressions lovers. A must!

Welp was not the first Belgian slasher in history: as early as 1982, Guy Lee Thijs started his film career with a Meurtres au crayon full of references to Giallo, half-homage and half-mockery. But Welp, shot in 2013 and co-produced by Potemkino with AT Production, is clearly of a different kind: young director Jonas Govaerts obviously knows his classics and when he refers to his idols, he knows all the tricks to connect with his audience.

Set in the Walloon forest, Welp follows a troop of innocent scouts from Antwerp coming across local crooks. But things get more complicated as we find out the supposedly quiet wood happens to be the fiefdom of the sadistic, bloodthirsty “skinner” and his partner in crime and torture, “the child wolf”.

With a great cast that includes Jan Hammenecker as a serial killer, Voogdt's Titus and Evelien Bosman, and cinematography by maestro Nicolas Karakatsanis, Welp marks the minds and makes a lasting impression.

A handful of Walloon technicians and the post-production studio Dame Blanche Genval were involved in this project. A few years later, with his formidable series Tabula Rasa, Jonas Govaerts proved to be a great director in the making. A star is born!

Belgian fantasy often comes with a certain degree of poetry and Angel (entirely produced in Belgium by Climax and Terra Incognita) is probably the best illustration of this.

Written by Harry Cleven and the talented Thomas Gunzig, the pitch itself is a wonder: "An invisible young boy falls in love with a blind girl." Though it does not reflect the subtle creative direction that makes the story credible and touching. It is no wonder Juliette Van Dormael's chose to be part of it.

It also shows it is possible to achieve great feats with a tight budget (less than 900,000 euros). A very unique director, Harry Cleven had not made any films since his disturbing Trouble in 2005 – the first genre film co-financed by Wallimage. But it’s no secret to anyone quantity doesn’t make quality!

When Jean-Jacques Neira (Fontana) was contacted by Netflix to lead the production of one of their films, everyone held their breath, realising the big shift in the industry was coming to Belgium. In 2016 Netflix was already a worrying myth, a kind of monster that could either devour or revitalize the entire film industry. You’d need to chose your side!

At Wallimage, once the surprise had passed, enthusiasm prevailed. Bringing together a French artistic team and a Walloon crew (from Liège) hired by line producer Nicolas George, the filming went smoothly. Within a limited budget for a work of this scope, the companies involved made the timely completion of the film possible through great inventiveness.

Mikros Liège (VFX) and Dame Blanche (sound) brought the final touch to the work, making Wallimage the first regional fund to invest in a Netflix project. Since then, we’ve renewed the collaboration with Netflix with Julien Leclercq's Blood and Dust.

Premiering at Sundance Festival last January (and following the steps of Mandy the previous year), The Hole in the Ground was praised by critics, who compared the film to the recent critically acclaimed reference films Hereditary, Badabook and It follows. This psychological thriller on the edge of horror was co-produced in Belgium by Wrong Men and their third-time partners, the Irish company Savage Films.

In the film, a young single mother is convinced that her young son has been transformed by a dark creature coming from the depths of a mysterious hole in the ground. We’re never sure if she is in a state of delirium or not, until the scary ending.

Post-produced in Belgium (with VFX by Mikros Liège), The Hole in the Ground may well frighten even the most discerning viewer.

Movies are like music. Some are designed to please the widest possible audience, others are meant to disturb, shaking the codes, blurring borders, lines and habits. Dreamland belongs to the latter category.

It follows a jazz virtuoso turned heroin addict, a vaguely empathetic hitman, and a ridiculous gang leader seeking revenge on a “disrespectful” musician, and vampires. Add a wedding and more drama. For Bruce McDonald (Pontyfool), nothing is enough to surprise anyone who would dare to venture into the film.

To give substance to this improbable story, he didn't skimp on casting either: Stephen McHattie against the crazy rockers Juliette Lewis and Henry Rollins. It's strong, powerful, almost perfect. Presented for its world premiere at the Brussels BIFFF in 2019, Dreamland proved that mixing film noir and a psychedelic atmosphere while pushing all the limits to their maximum, could result in a work of art defying landmarks and disrupting habits. It’s up to you to judge.

Filmed in English in Belgium and premiered at the BIFFF 2019, The Room is a fantastic film by the intriguing French director Christian Volckman (Renaissanc). It brings together Flemish star Kevin Janssens, who has already won the hearts of the French genre audiences in Revenge, and Franco-Ukrainian ex-James Bond Girl Olga Kurylenko.

In the film, an attractive young couple makes the lifetime decision of investing in a beautiful remote residence. They soon find out their new home has a special room that is not on the house plans. What had seemed to be paradise and a solution to their everyday life worries, turns out to be closer to hell.

Almost entirely in-camera, constantly stifling and inventive, and sometimes terrifying, The Room, co-produced in Wallonia by Versus, carries us to a breathtaking and disturbing ending. Full of false leads, false pretenses, frightening mirror effects, this highly tense film is magnified by the creative special effects by Mikros Liège.

When it comes to genre films, it’s hard to guess what you’ll get from a script. Who could have predicted that Mandy and The Hole in the Ground would be selected for the prestigious Sundance festival, or imagine that Panos Cosmatos’ psychedelic delirium would be presented at Cannes’ Directors' Fortnight? Not the classical host for genre films, Cannes is undoubtedly the festival that counts for any filmmaker with a little ambition.

So imagine the smile Lorcan Finnegan's face when he found out that his second feature film was selected for the 2019 Critics' Week. After Sea Fever and Muse, Vivarium is the third Fantastic Film - Frakas (Irish-Belgian) co-production. It brings together Imogen Poots (Green Room) and Jesse Eisenberg. The film follows a young couple locked-up in a Hotel California-style residential area as their lives turn into a surrealist hell.

Shot in an empty warehouse turned into a film studio in the Liège (Wallonia) region, Vivarium is Walloon again through some special effects signed by Benuts.

Who are the monsters? People with physical anomalies who exhibit themselves to get by or those who shamelessly exploit them?

When some Italian circus freaks are left without resources after the bankruptcy of the circus they work for, they decide to join a passing German circus. Unfortunately, their new employer has more ambitions for them than just entertaining audiences: a devoted fan of Adolf Hitler, he’s seeking superheroes who can help the Nazi regime to win the war.

Co-produced in Belgium with Gapbusters, Freaks Out is Gabrielle Mainetti's second feature film. Her first film Jeeg Robot was a real hit in Italy: it made €5 million at the Italian box office, won seven Donatello awards, was sold in 10 countries and was finally acquired by Netflix. This is a pretty good score for an independent film that owes more to the talent of its creator than to its budget. With one film, Gabrielle Mainetti has become a star. She is currently editing Freaks Out. Then, the sound post-production and the VFXs will be made in Wallonia.

The Frontieres market has become the place to be for all the industry of genre. It takes place every year in three phases and three locations: Montreal, Cannes and then a major European city for packaging and financing. Raw was born there.

Today, the new talked-about film is Sea Fever. It brings together experienced producers, international sellers, distributors and directors. Co-produced in Ireland by Brendan McCarthy from Fantastic Film, and in Belgium by Frakas, Sea Fever won the Frontieres award in 2018. It was also presented by Wallimage as a case study in Helsinki in 2019 and is a particularly enlightening case because of the numerous and unexpected obstacles that had to be overcome to complete the project.

Considering the result, it was worth it. Imagine a marine biologist struggling to save a trawler's crew from a horrible parasite living into the drinking water tank. It’s a kind of revival of Alien or The Thing, but this time in the open sea where nobody can hear you scream.

Directed by Neasa Hardiman, whose international sales agent says she can lift mountains and that she makes you happily follow her, Sea Fever will bring the beautiful Danish actress Connie Nielsen to the biggest genre festivals in 2020.

It's not easy to produce a genre film intended for cinema in France. Many failures have made distributors and investors reluctant and forced producers to find alternatives to theatrical releases.

Cosmogony is written and directed by Vincent Paronnaux, well-known under the name of Winshluss for his successful comic book Pinocchio, and for co-directing Persepolis and Chicken with Plums. The film was shot in Wallonia with a duo of Belgian, English speaking actors: Lucie Debay (Melody) and Arieh Wortalther (Girl, Transfer).

A classic at first sight, the story of Cosmogony turns out to be far from what you would expect. A co-production between France (Kidam), Ireland (Savage) and Belgium (Wrong Men as majority producer), Cosmogony is a major challenge which defies all the clichés of the genre.

When a first-time Belgian filmmaker like Zoe Wittock brings you a project about a girl's passion for a merry-go-round, there’s good reason to be intrigued. This uncommon romance is based on the true story of Olympic archery champion and objectophile Erika Labrie, who married the Eiffel Tower in 2004.

Led by French actresses Noémie Merlant and Emmanuelle Bercot, this project is so fascinating that Mad Movies - the reference magazine for genre cinema in France - wrote six pages about it. The film was partly shot in the Plopsa Coo Park in Wallonia.

It is a Belgian (Kwassa) - French (Insolence Productions) - Luxembourg (Les films fauves) co-production, with astonishing special effects created by Benuts.

When a murder happens in the city where she lives, a young and psychologically fragile woman is suddenly confronted with her traumatic childhood. In touch with dark thoughts, she starts questioning her brother's earlier death. What if he was the murderer? To deal with it, she goes on a countryside retreat. But instead of clearing her mind, it pushes her to face her past and hidden fears.

Initiated in Luxembourg by Calash, Skinwalker is co-produced in Belgium by the Flemish company Caviar, who had the brilliant idea of spending most of its post-production money in Wallonia.

The Post Box, Genval-les-Dames and Benuts will create the VFXs. This delirious film directed by Christian Neuman promises to hit more than one genre film festival.

Say the word "Kandisha” five times into a mirror and expect the worst. Kandisha is the name of a witch who was tortured to death and is seeking revenge. Fans of Candyman or Beetlejuice may think they know the whole process, but they’ll be surprised. While the film takes inspiration from the classics, it subtly mixes the codes of genre with a social drama, Girlhoodesque, style.

Directed by Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo (Inside, Livid, Among the Living, Leatherface), and co-produced by Esprits frappeurs (Just a Breath Away), WY Productions (Yves Saint Laurent) and Scope Pictures in Belgium, Kandisha will be partly shot in Wallonia and post-produced here.

Say “Wallimage" five times into a mirror, and see what happens!

Genre film is not only meant to shake us up and make us deliciously uncomfortable, it can also be simply wonderful, poetic, surrealist, romantic and funny.

A Mermaid in Paris is the perfect illustration of this. Directed by multidisciplinary artist Mathias Malzieu – known as the lead singer of Dyonisos and as the director of the animated film Jack and the Cuckoo-Clock Heart – A Mermaid in Paris is adapted from Malzieu’s own novel published in early 2019.

Set in an underwater Paris, the film tells the story of a wandering soul who falls in love with a mermaid, ignoring the risks attached. Reda Kateb, Clémence Poésy and Rossy De Palma will play the lead roles.

The Belgian production company Entre Chien et Loup brings 20 Walloon technicians and the post-production studios Genval les Dames and L'autre compagnie to work on the project.

This is an excellent example of detective fiction at the border between dreams and reality, and fantasy and science-fiction. De Behandeling is a thriller adapted from a dark novel by Mo Hayder, directed by Hans Herbots and co-produced by Eyeworks with Entre Chien et Loup. In the film, a policeman haunted by the disappearance of his brother investigates the case of the death of a young child who was kidnapped by a troll.

Featuring Geert Van Rampelberg and Laura Verlinden, this very dark and disturbing film has been a dazzling success among theatre and DVD audiences. A fine illustration of the boldness of Flemish cinema.

Though it doesn’t play with fantasy boundaries, Lukas still belongs to that same category of radically dark, traditionally Anglo-Saxon genre films. Co-produced in Belgium by 1080 Films, the film was entirely shot in Belgium, mainly in Wallonia, and carried out by the powerful performance of Jean-Claude Vandamme.

In the same way Mickey Rourke illuminated The Wrestler, Vandamme—the No. 1 Belgian actor in the US—plays a weary and wounded character with strength, giving him a rare bitterness and sincerity.

The film is directed by successful French filmmaker Julien Leclercq (The Assault, The Crew, The Informant) and co-written by young French writer Jérémie Guez in a style that is yet little-explored in France. Guez’ second film, The Sound of Philadelphia, is also co-financed by Wallimage.

Blood and Dust followed Lukas, also directed by Julien Leclercq, filmed in Wallonia and funded by Wallimage.

This rural, highly tense and extremely brutal thriller is centered on a mysterious, radical and troubled character played by Sami Bouajila. Bouajila, seen in Lukas and The Crew, is likely to become Leclercq’s signature actor.

Co-produced in Belgium by Umedia, Blood and Dust is set in a huge and cinematic sawmill located in Gesves, in the Namur region. The film will be distributed worldwide on Netflix in early 2020.

With its sardonic title, A Good Woman is Hard to Find (produced by Frakas) is a small, snarling, feminist thriller. It could be described as a much more violent version of the series Weeds—like Ken Loach meeting Tarantino and Park Chan-Wok. We’ll let you imagine the result and the critical directorial challenge for English director Abner Pastoll.

In the film, Sarah Bolger plays a desperate mother whose husband has been killed and then turns worse than her enemies. She carries out her mission with great talent until a final scene that promises to be unforgettable.

Following the path of his filmmaker grandfather Vittorio and inspired by his composer father, the multi-skilled, young Andrea De Sica decided to become a director. Already the writer of several short films, he made his first feature film in 2016: I Fligli Della Notte is a Lynchian dive into a boarding school for rich and difficult teenagers located in the mountains.

The lives of the school’s students are boring, until they discover a strange establishment that is the home to all temptations. With a cold cynicism, De Sica plunges us into a sensory and hypnotic universe that makes us want to discover more.

Whether it’s an ambient or a genre film, I Fligli Della Notte silenced audiences at the BIFFF in 2018. We see this reaction as a pretty good sign.

What happens when you mix your classic thriller story (a group of robbers hiding in a remote house) with the spaghetti western- style of the 70s? You get Let the Corpses Tan, by the duo of Italian-Giallo fan directors Cattet-Forzani (Amer, The Strange Colour of your Body’s Tears).

The Corpses is a mix of crazy faces, hyper-polished cinematography by Manu Dacosse, and an irritating slowness combined with a dissonant soundtrack.

It’s the kind of movie you’ve never seen before and a cult film in the truest sense. Three-time winner at the 2019 Magritte du Cinema in Belgium.

Belgium is home to a few big directors specialised in genre films. Fabrice Du Welz is undoubtedly the most famous one. He is the author of immoral trilogy named Ardennes, which started with the film Calvaire. His latest film, Alleluia, is the second installment, produced by Panique and co-financed by Wallimage.

With its fantastic and cloying atmosphere meant to reflect the state of mind of its main characters, Alleluia is a film noir, immoral, insolent and disturbing. The granular photography by Manu Dacosse, the ambivalent interpretation by actors Lola Dueñas and Laurent Lucas, and the suffocating climax evoking The Shining make it very unique. Alleluia was selected in Cannes and Toronto, won four Magritte awards (for Best Image, Best Sound, Best Setting, Best Editing) and a prestigious Méliès d'Or at Sitgès.

Adoration, the upcoming third part of the series, is supposed to be a slightly lighter film… to the extent Du Welz is capable of.

In a remote park, cut off from the rest of the world, thirty-five girls aged 5 to 11 study dance and natural sciences. While the pitch for Innocence is quite disconcerting, Lucile Hadzihalilovic's first feature film falls into the "arty genre film" category and impressed the juries of the Neuchatel, Stockholm, San Sebastian, Yubarui and Istanbul festivals enough to be awarded the supreme award.

The film is co-produced by Entre Chien et Loup in Belgium. Belgian director of photography Benoit Debie, famous for his work on Irreversible by Gaspard Noé, is on board. The success of the film has a lot to do with his strange and fascinating photography, which some may find unconventional.

In 2011, Jean-Baptiste Leonetti brought together Sami Bouajila and Julie Gayet in a dystopic, cold and scary film. In this dehumanized world, two orphans named Philippe and Marie, grew up together. Twenty years later, they married. But then their lives take significantly different paths. Philippe has become a cold and relentless executive who Mary helplessly watches become a stranger, until she decides to confront the system and fight for what remains of their love. Alone against all, we don’t know how far they will be able to take it…

Carré Blanc, produced by Tarantula, was critically acclaimed by the Écran Fantastique magazine which praises the unique style and original subject of the film, while comparing it with cult films such as They live! or Soylent Green.

As she starts writing her first novel, Jeanne notices unusual changes happening around her and to her own body. Strangely enough, those around her do not seem to notice.

Don’t Look Back combines an intriguing plot, a stellar casting including Sophie Marceau and Monica Bellucci, and the talent of rising director Marina De Van (known for the disturbing In My Skin). Like Lucile Hadzihalilovic, Julia Ducourneau and Coralie Fargeat, Marina De Van belongs to the new wave of French feminist filmmakers who place women at the centre of genre film with an avowed desire to subvert gender codes.

With its complex special effects (10 months of work), the film was selected for the 2009 Cannes Film Festival (out of competition) and generated more than 13 million euros at the box office.

As a screenwriter, Gilles Marchand worked with Laurent Cantet on Les Sanguinaires and Human Resources, Dominik Moll on Harry, He’s Here To Help and Lemming, and Cedric Kahn on Red Lights and L’Avion. As a director, he made Who Killed Bambi in 2003 and then The Other World in 2010.

Dealing with the alienating power of the virtual world, The Other World follows a young teenager, bored in real life and addicted to online games, and a young woman looking for a partner to die with in a game called Black Hole.

Produced by Versus in Belgium, The Other World is an aesthetic, offbeat and rather intellectual film. Its strange and fantastic universe evokes the world of Blue Velvet.

On trial for twenty-seven murders, Claude suffers from a multiple personality disorder dealing with seven confronting personalities. Matthias, the policeman who arrested her, and Dr. Brennac, her psychiatrist, are working on the case. Diving into the mazes of Claude’s inner world, they will gradually put together the pieces of a terrifying past, from where there might be no way back…

Writer and director René Manzor became famous in the eighties for genre films such as The Passage or Dial Code Santa Claus. Produced in Belgium by Alexis Films, Labyrinth brings together famous French actors Lambert Wilson, Sylvie Testud and Frédéric Diefenthal in a sophisticated psychological thriller that will keep audiences breathless until the final, unexpected twist. Since the release of the film, René Manzor has continued to explore the furrow of fantasy and suspense in literature and television.

Twins have always seemed to play a part in cinema: Cronenberg explored the theme in Dead Ringers, De Palma in Sisters and, in a completely different style, François Ozon in Double Lover. Unconditional of the genre, director Harry Cleven also gave it a try in his film Trouble.

In the film, the main character (played by Benoit Magimel) discovers the existence of a twin brother he had never heard of before. But delving into your past can affect your present and compromise your future... In Trouble, you’ll find Cleven’s very unique and personal touch that also marks his more recent film, the disturbing and poetic Angel, which was also funded by Wallimage.

The history of cinema counts many strange and fascinating titles, but this one is undoubtedly one of our favourites. This most intriguing psychological thriller follows the path of a diver, a highly competitive exemplary athlete who falls into a coma after an accident during training. When she emerges from it, her daily life seems slightly off, obscured by black outs and strange events.

Produced by La Parti and directed by Guillaume and Stéphane Malandrin (also called "the other brothers of Belgian cinema"), Hand of the Headless Man plunges the audience into an increasingly offbeat, inimical and suffocating universe.

A film that won’t leave you unscathed – as experienced by French journalist Jean-François Khan, who felt sick during the screening of the film at the Angoulême Festival.

Though humour is not typical in Francophone genre films, you see it sometimes. Making the YouTube generation laugh out loud is precisely the objective of director Tony Datis with The Mansion. Datis is a video virtuoso who’s pursued his dream of moving on to feature films in an offbeat and personal style.

If you mix an old remote mansion, a group of students celebrating the New Year and an unexpected, evil visitor, and add to it social media influencers like Mister V, Ludovik, Jérome Niel or Kemar, you’ll get an idea of the result.

A kind of original, offbeat Scary Movie, the film surprised the classic critics and theatre audiences in France and Belgium. Some people might call it tacky, but the fans of the genre should be delighted and ask for more! The Mansion was shot in Belgium and is produced by Nexus.

Like The Mansion, The Canterville Ghost is a radical attempt to mix fantasy and comedy, but in a completely different, more traditional and cinematic vein. Oscar Wilde’s novel was adapted many times before into three films, four television films, many comics, plays and even an opera.

In this latest adaptation directed by Yann Samuel and produced by Umedia, the beautiful Eleanor of Canterville (played by Audrey Fleurot) and her faithful servant Gwilherm (Michael Youn) are having the hardest time haunting their own castle as a Parisian family moves in with no intention of being destabilized at all.

The Canterville Ghost ends up to be more a mischievous family comedy, supported by excellent special effects. It was an opportunity for Wallimage to reconnect with a director who played a big part in establishing Wallimage reputation in 2003, with Love Me If You Dare featuring the star couple of French cinema Marion Cotillard and Guillaume Canet.