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Lena: A Tale of Lonelines Developed and produced by Amsterdam-based Els Vandevorst, Lena is the second HGCVWTG Ä NO HTQO FKTGEVQT Christophe Van Rompaey after his critically acclaimed debut Moscow, Belgium. After its selection in the Contemporary World Cinema programme at Toronto, Lena’s producer and director spoke to Melanie Goodfellow. Inundated with scripts after festival hit Moscow, Belgium, Flemish director Christophe Van Rompaey nearly turned down Dutch producer Els Vandevorst when she contacted him asking whether he would like to direct Lena. “He had a lot of scripts on his desk, a lot of people approaching him and was on the verge of shooting another film but he told me to send him the script anyway and that he would read it,” says Vandevorst. The film, which Vandevorst started developing with writer Mieke de Jong after they collaborated on Martin Koolhoven’s South in 2003, focuses on isolated, overweight teenager Lena who makes dark compromises to keep her dream boyfriend. The story revolves around her unexpected romance with the good-looking, popular Daan, who asks her to move in with him and his father. Lena thinks she has found the loving home she never had. This dream is quickly shattered but the lonely teenager goes to incredible lengths to maintain the illusion. Something in the character captured Van Rompaey’s imagination. “He called me and said ‘I can’t get the girl out of my head. I can’t think about anything else other than this lonely
character,” recounts Vandevorst. “We met up and immediately clicked. I like Christophe a lot not just as a director but also as a human being. It was clear to me that he was the right director for the project.”
found intriguing. I immediately saw things in her that I could connect to the story,” he explains. Polish actress Buzek, meanwhile, was a revelation to Van Rompaey. “Agata was appearing in a play in Amsterdam. I didn’t know her films but Els was keen I audition her. I drove to Amsterdam from Belgium, did a casting and then jumped back into the car and headed back for the opening of the Brussels Film Festival because I was on the jury,” recounts the director.
“Of all the scripts I read, Lena spoke to me the most,” agrees Van Rompaey. “It’s a very personal, character-based story, which I like. Lena’s this isolated, rootless figure brought up in the Netherlands by a young Polish mother, who needs her but rejects her at the same time because of her own back story.”
tragicomedy about a fortysomething recent divorcée and a single mother’s unlikely relationship with a truck driver. “I am actually a bit puzzled when people refer to the film as a comedy because I don’t see it that way. The dramatic and comic are two sides of me. Sure I have an upside, an ability not to take things, and especially not myself, too seriously, but I also have a pretty dark side too, or so people tell me,” says Van Rompaey.
“By strange coincidence, the opening film was The Reverse in which Agata is the lead. I took this as some sort of sign,” he concludes. “It was a good call because she is an amazingly professional, talented actress.”
The director was scheduled to shoot his adaptation of Peter Terrin’s dark novel Blank first but when finance for that film fell through, he shifted his attention to Lena. First-time actress Emma Levie plays Lena opposite Niels Gomperts (Daan), who recently starred in Shocking Blue (Mark de Cloe). Rising Polish star Agata Buzek (Polish EFP Shooting Star 2010) was cast as Lena’s mother and Jeroen Willems as Daan’s father. But for Van Rompaey, the casting of Lena was key to the success of the film.
The shoot took place on the outskirts of Rotterdam earlier this year. In an unusual move, Van Rompaey and cinemato-
“Of all the scripts I read, Lena spoke to me the most.”
“It took us more than a year to cast Lena. She is in every frame. The story is told through her. We are not showing the audience anything she doesn’t know. The actress had to be able to carry the film,” he says.
grapher Menno Westendorp decided to frame the film in Four-by-Three, shooting uniquely with hand-held cameras. “The decision to shoot in Four-byThree is so right for this film. I wanted to shoot it from the perspective of Lena, the story is revealed through her eyes. I wasn’t aiming for an epic look with lots of landscapes, but rather something up-close and personal, claustrophobic almost.”
“I must have seen hundreds of girls. I was getting desperate. Emma came to us by chance. She was something like the best friend of the babysitter of the neighbour of the assistant casting director,” says Van Rompaey with a laugh. “She wasn’t exactly what I was seeking and her first casting was really very bad. It was actually what she did between takes that I
Lena marks a change in mood and style for Van Rompaey after Moscow, Belgium - a romantic
Lena Director: Christophe van Rompaey Script: Mieke de Jong Production: Isabella Films, Kazbek, A Private View (BE) Sales: Bavaria Film International (GER) 16
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19-08-11 09:29