Variety's Ten Euro Directors to Watch 2012 / Hasta la vista / Belgium 2011
Fictitiously elaborating on Asta Philpot’s real-life trips to a wheelchair-accessible Spanish brothel and his advocacy of prostitution as one sexual-expression option for the disabled, Come As You Are is a likable seriocomedy with assured direction. Winner, Best Film, Audience Award, Montreal Film Festival.
Three twenty-something special-needs men go on a road trip to Spain to lose their virginity in Come As You Are, a likable seriocomedy loosely inspired by Asta Philpot, an advocate for handicapped persons’ sexuality. Genial Jozef (Tom Audenaert) is almost completely blind. Prankster Philip (Robrecht Vanden Thoren) is a paraplegic. Likewise wheelchair-bound, Lars (Gilles De Schryver) has a degenerative terminal illness that brings on paralysis and occasional fits. Fictitiously elaborating on Philpot’s real-life trips to a wheelchair-accessible Spanish brothel and his advocacy of prostitution as one sexual-expression option for the disabled, the film is never condescending, and Geoffrey Enthoven’s assured direction likewise resists overplaying the obvious emotional cues. Winner, Best Film, Audience Award, Montreal Film Festival.
115 min / Color, DIGIBETA
Director Geoffrey Enthoven
/ Screenplay Pierre de Clercq
/ Dir. of Photography Gerd Shelfhout
/ Music Meuris & Papermouth
/ Editor Phillipe Ravoet
/ Producer Mariano Vanhoof
/ Production Fobic Films
/ Cast Robrecht Vanden Thoren, Gilles De Schryver, Tom Audenaert, Isabelle de Hertogh
/ Contact Asociace českých filmových klubů, Films Boutique
/ Distributor Asociace českých filmových klubů
Geoffrey Enthoven (b. 1974, Wilrijk, Belgium), Flemish director, editor, and screenwriter, graduated with a master’s in audiovisual arts. His short graduation film The Undertaker (De aanspreker, 1999) was presented in numerous countries and won many awards. In 1999 he and Marian Vanhoof, friend and film enthusiast, founded Fobic Films productions. They debuted their first film Children of Love (Les enfants de l’amour) in 2001 and also cooperated on the documentary Voice on Wings (2003). By 2010 Enthoven had directed another three features, contributing to screenwriting duties as well: The Only One (Vidange perdue, 2006), which treats feelings of abandonment in old age; Happy Together (2008), about a man facing the collapse of career and family; and Meisjes (2009), featuring an elderly widow who decides to get her old singing group back together. Come As You Are is his fifth feature.
Asociace českých filmových klubů
Stonky 860, 686 01, Uherské Hradiště
Czech Republic
Phone: +420 572 501 989
E-mail: [email protected]
Films Boutique
Köpenicker Str. 184, 10997, Berlin
Germany
Phone: +49 306 953 7850
E-mail: [email protected]
Jan Jílek
Distributor, Festival Organizer
Geoffrey Enthoven
Film Director, Film Director
Christian De Schutter
PR & Marketing
Cristina Cavaliere
Sales Agent
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