Dhont brothers talk production outfit The Reunion, its first feature ‘Julian’, and Lukas’ upcoming First World War film ‘Coward’

The Reunion, the production company set up in Belgium in 2021 by Oscar-­nominated director Lukas Dhont and his younger brother Michiel, is about to unveil its first majority feature, Julian. The debut film of Flemish director Cato Kusters plays in TIFF’s Discovery strand.

Julian, like Lukas’s own movies, is sold by The Match Factory and will be distributed in Benelux by Jan De Clercq’s Lumiere. Lukas and Michiel produce and are the originators of the project, having optioned the book by writer and LGBTQ+ activist Fleur Pierets, which draws heavily on her own life.

The brothers are at TIFF for the premiere of Julian but only on a whistle­stop visit: Lukas’s latest feature as director, First World War-set Coward, begins production in September. Sold by The Match Factory and shooting in Belgium and New York, the period piece with its large cast is the most ambitious feature tackled by Lukas. “When Lukas started talking about the project, it felt very big but [also] like the right moment for him to make this film,” Michiel says of Coward.

On the face of it, the brothers complement each other perfectly. Lukas, in his trademark baseball cap, is the sensitive deep-thinker, able to coax emotionally frank performances from his actors. Michiel is the pragmatic and strong-willed business executive. Before going to film school, Michiel studied economics and, at one stage, was planning to work for their father’s steel and metal company.

“Our parents do different things. Our mother taught fashion at the Sint-Lucas high school in Ghent, and our father was into finance and was an entrepreneur,” Michiel says of their background. He excelled in mathematics and science, which drew him initially towards his father’s world before switching to film.

Michiel was fresh out of Ghent’s KASK school of arts when he first worked — as a production assistant — on one of his older brother’s features: the Cannes 2018 Camera d’Or winner Girl. Three years later he was a full-blown producer alongside Menuet’s Dirk Impens on Lukas’s next feature, the Oscar-nominated Close in 2022.

By then, industry veteran Impens was planning to retire. “I got the opportunity from Dirk to do everything he didn’t want to do anymore,” Michiel notes of his collaboration with the experienced producer, whose credits included Oscar nominee The Broken Circle Breakdown from Felix Van Groeningen and Daens from Stijn Coninx. “I got to see what it takes to make a film and that helped when it came to creating our own production company.”

When Impens did step down, Lukas was confident his brother could step into the breach. “Michiel is someone who wants to bring the best and biggest artistic vision that we can to the screen. When Dirk was retiring, it felt like an organic shift to work with Michiel.”

The brothers may have some early footage of Coward ready for Flanders Film Days (October 7-8), the Flemish industry showcase event held in Ghent.

Passion project

The origins of Julian began during Covid. “I remember Lukas sending me a text, ‘Read this book!’” the younger brother recalls of Lukas’s passion for Pierets’ novel of the same name and how it created the impetus to set up The Reunion.

“Julian was the pivotal moment for us to go for it,” continues Michiel. “The book is based on Fleur’s life. She and her wife Julian had the remarkable idea to get married in every country where same-sex marriage was allowed. Back then, in 2017, there were 22 countries. But after the fourth wedding in Paris, Julian was diagnosed with critical brain tumours and she died six weeks later.

“For Lukas and myself, in our cinema we look for stories that are urgent, important and have a social relevance but mixed with something universal such as love, loss and the mourning process. The mix of those elements sparked something in us,” observes Michiel.

Lukas agrees: “I recognised an artist using art as a way of catharsis, as a way of dealing with the beauty and the harshness of life.”

Lukas was determined to get the movie made but “could not see himself completely as the director” having just finished Close, which dealt with some of the same issues. The brothers turned to Kusters, after admiring her 2022 prize-winning short Finn’s Heel. She was one of five emerging Flemish filmmakers Lukas chose for promotional initiative The Future Five he curated at Connext in 2023.

Lukas’s regular writing collaborator Angelo Tijssens penned the screenplay with Kusters, and the co-­production partners include Topkapi in the Netherlands and Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne’s Les Films du Fleuve in Belgium.

The Reunion is involved in two other co-productions this year. Lukas and Michiel are the minority partners on the Dardennes’ Young Mothers, which won the best screenplay award at Cannes this year. They are also co-producing Dutch director Mees Peijnenburg’s A Family starring Carice van Houten, majority produced by Pupkin Film, now in post.

Lukas describes Peijnenburg as his “best friend”. They were Cannes Cinéfondation residents together in 2016-17 when developing their first features. They had rooms next to each other, and Lukas — a smoker at the time — would run into his Dutch neighbour every time he went for a cigarette. “That created an incredible bond between us.”

For now, Michiel is taking on most of the administrative burden of The Reunion. The company is “always going to stay small” and Lukas’s own films are “going to be a top priority”, they both affirm. At the same time, the brothers are looking to “expand their connections internationally” and to continue nurturing young local talent.

Narrative exploration

The brothers will not reveal much about Coward at this stage. “It’s a film with a lot of young adults… a lot of young faces, a lot of new faces mixed with people you might have seen before. It’s a very special project. We have been writing it for the last three years,” says Lukas, who has co-scripted with Tijssens. “We hope it’s a continuation of what we’ve been doing but in a different arena, a different world.”

They have been carrying out research in the archives of London’s Imperial War Museums and in Belgium and France, “really diving into history to create something both resonant with the past and incredibly relevant to the present,” says Lukas.

Longer term, The Reunion is open to working on international and US projects. Lukas speaks highly of Dutch director Halina Reijn’s successes in Hollywood, notably with 2024’s Babygirl. He sees himself as an actor’s director and has a wishlist of talents including Ireland’s Andrew Scott and Renate Reinsve, the Norwegian star of The Worst Person In The World and Sentimental Value.

But for now, the focus is firmly on his First World War movie. “I can only do one thing at a time, from a director’s point of view, and I feel the next step will be dictated by the end of this one.”

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