The Flemish producer and director Koen Mortier went into memory with dark and raw dramedy of abuse and oppression, Ex-Drummer, verging from punk to nihilism. He proved his visionary and personal style in odd combination of terrorism and ghost story in May 22. It took 8 years until his third feature project, Angel. Similar to Ex-Drummer, Angel is based on the book Monologue of Someone Who Got Used to Talking to Herself by Dimitri Verhulst (whose other book also received also a big screen treatment by Felix van Groeningen, The Misfortunates). Angel is a retelling of the last days of Belgian cyclist Frank Vandenbroucke, who was found dead at the age of 34 in a hotel room in Senegal.
The official synopsis goes: "Angel follows the encounter of a prostitute, Fae, and a world famous athlete, Thierry. During his vacation in Senegal, he falls head over heels for the African beauty. They find dignity and hope with each other, wanting to get out of their troublesome situations. But more important than these mutual desires, they find love. Until, later in the evening, Thierry starts behaving strangely, under the influence of substances. Fae is forced to leave him but when she discovers that Thierry has passed away the next morning, she's arrested, despite her innocence. To move on with her life, she must return to the place where it all started."
"Fae and Thierry both want to get out of their sunken holes. I wanted to show these two worlds where hope and fears lead parallel. That's why I chose to portray a balance of those two worlds where their dreams and fears both appear", says the director.
Angel will open the Ostend Film Festival in Belgium (September 7-15) and then hit domestic theatres at September 19. The film is lensed by I,Tonya and Bullhead cinematographer Nicolas Karakatsanis.
Check out the moody teaser.