Jessica Hope Woodworth | |
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| Born | 1971 |
| Occupation(s) | Actress, film director, screenwriter |
| Years active | 1994—present |
Jessica Hope Woodworth is a Belgian-American film director, screenwriter, and producer.
Jessica Hope Woodworth | |
|---|---|
| | |
| Born | 1971 |
| Occupation(s) | Actress, film director, screenwriter |
| Years active | 1994—present |
Jessica Hope Woodworth is a Belgian-American film director, screenwriter, and producer.
Woodworth studied Classic Theatre and Literature at the University of Princeton (graduated in 1993), she also holds a master's degree in Documentary Film from Stanford University (1999). [1] [2] In 1994 she started working at TV in Paris, then moved to Hong Kong where she acted as a producer and screenwriter for educational films and documentaries. Her thesis for Stanford, Urga Song documentary, was made in Mongolia. The film was screened at several prestigious film festivals around the world. [3] After that, she received a Fulbright grant that she used for her next project, The Virgin Diaries, shot in Morocco and premiered at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam. [4] [2]
In 1999, while filming Urga Song in Mongolia, she met Peter Brosens, a fellow director, who was working on the third part of his 'Mongolia Trilogy'. They married in Germany in 2000. [5] In 2005, Brosens and Woodworth co-founded Bo Films, a production company based in Ghent. [6] Since 2006, they have co-directed five features. Their first movie, Mongolia-based Khadak , became a great success and won 20 prizes at various festivals, including the Luigi De Laurentiis Award at the 63rd Venice International Film Festival. [7] [8] [2]
Their next film, Altiplano , was shot high in the Andes. Based on a real life incident, the plot is centered on two female leads, a photojournalist Grace married to a doctor who works in a local village, and Saturnina, a young Peruvian Indian who lost her betrothed because of a mercury spillage caused by mining. [9] [10] [11]
In 2016 Woodworth and Brosens released their first comedy, King of the Belgians . [12] The road movie about a monarch lost in the Balkans became an international hit and won numerous awards. [12] [13] The film premiered at the Cannes Critics’ Week in 2009, it won KNF Award at the International Rotterdam film festival, and took Grand Prix at the Bangkok IFF. [12] King of the Belgians was followed by a sequel, The Barefoot Emperor . [14] [15]
In 2021 she started working on her first solo feature, Luka. The movie was produced by Bo Films. The plot was adapted from Dino Buzzati’s novel The Tartar Steppe . The leading role was given to the young Dutch actor Jonas Smulders. [16] In 2023, Luka premiered at the Big Screen Competition at the International Rotterdam film festival. [17] [18]
Woodworth is a prolific and fruitful film director, she has released a dozen of features that have been screened in over 350 festivals and got over 70 awards.
The cinema of Mongolia has been strongly influenced by the cinema of Russia, which differentiates it from cinematic developments in the rest of Asia.
Joachim Lafosse is a Belgian film director and screenwriter.
Khadak is a 2006 Belgian/Dutch/German drama film directed by Peter Brosens and Jessica Woodworth.
Altiplano is a 2009 Peruvian-Belgian drama film by Peter Brosens and Jessica Woodworth, starring Magaly Solier, Jasmin Tabatabai, and Olivier Gourmet. It takes places on three continents in five different languages. It tells the stories of two women in mourning and how their destinies merge.
The 69th annual Venice International Film Festival, organized by Venice Biennale, took place at Venice Lido from 29 August to 8 September 2012. The festival opened with the Indian director Mira Nair's The Reluctant Fundamentalist, and closed with the Out of Competition film The Man Who Laughs, directed by Jean-Pierre Ameris. Terrence Malick's film To the Wonder was met with both boos and cheers from critics at its premiere.
Private Lessons is a 2008 Belgian drama film directed by Joachim Lafosse. It was written by Lafosse and François Pirot. It was screened in the Directors' Fortnight section at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival on 19 May. It was nominated for seven Magritte Awards and was awarded Best Actor for Jonathan Zaccaï and Most Promising Actress for Pauline Étienne.
Manneken Pis is a 1995 Belgian comedy-drama film directed by Frank Van Passel and written by Christophe Dirickx. It premiered in May 1995 at the Cannes Film Festival. It received the André Cavens Award for Best Film and four awards at the Joseph Plateau Awards. The film was selected as the Belgian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 68th Academy Awards, but was not accepted as a nominee.
The 4th Magritte Awards ceremony, presented by the Académie André Delvaux, honored the best films of 2013 in Belgium and took place on 1 February 2014, at the Square in the historic site of Mont des Arts, Brussels beginning at 8:00 p.m. CET. During the ceremony, the Académie André Delvaux presented Magritte Awards in 21 categories. The ceremony was televised in Belgium by BeTV. Actress Émilie Dequenne presided the ceremony, while actor Fabrizio Rongione hosted the show for the second time.
In the Name of the Son is a 2012 black comedy film directed by Vincent Lannoo, who wrote the film with Albert Charles and Philippe Falardeau. It had its world premiere at the Namur Film Festival on 29 September 2012.
Peter Krüger is a Belgian film director, producer, and screenwriter. He is best known for directing the fiction film N - The Madness of Reason (2014), winning the Ensor Award for Best Film, and Antwerp Central (2011) winning the Grand Prize at this 29th International Festival of Films on Art in Montreal.
N – The Madness of Reason is a 2014 Belgian documentary film written and directed by Peter Krüger.
King of the Belgians is a 2016 mockumentary comedy film produced, written and directed by Peter Brosens and Jessica Woodworth. It premiered in the Horizons section at the 73rd edition of the Venice Film Festival. It received five nominations at the 8th Magritte Awards, including Best Flemish Film. Its sequel, The Barefoot Emperor, premiered at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival.
Above the Law is a 2017 Belgian-French crime thriller film directed by François Troukens and Jean-François Hensgens. Frank Valken a career criminal, commits a bank heist with his crew, and is set up by corrupt police, for the murder of a judge investigating the 30 year old unsolved case of the mass murders of Brabant who had been duped into being at the getaway scene, and for killing bystanders who witness the murder.
The Barefoot Emperor is a 2019 Belgian comedy film directed by Jessica Woodworth and Peter Brosens. It was screened in the Contemporary World Cinema section at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival. It is a sequel to King of the Belgians, a 2016 mockumentary by the same directors. Events from the first movie are briefly recapped at the beginning of the film. As of October 2021, 50% of the six reviews compiled on Rotten Tomatoes are positive, with an average rating of 5.4/10.
Even Lovers Get the Blues is a 2016 Belgian drama film written and directed by Laurent Micheli. It explores themes about gender and sexuality, and features a cast of actors in their first major film role. The film had its world premiere at the 2016 Namur International Film Festival, where it received the Critics Prize.
The Ensor Award is an accolade presented by the Ensor Academy of Belgium to recognize cinematic achievement in the film industry and is the highest film honour in the Flemish speaking part of the country. Named after James Ensor, it is the successor of the Joseph Plateau Award that honoured films from the entire country. Since its discontinuation, the Magritte Awards are given to French speaking movies, while the Ensors honour Flemish productions.
Binti is a 2019 Belgian drama film written and directed by Frederike Migom. Twelve-year-old Binti was born in the Congo but has lived with her father Jovial in Belgium since she was a baby. Despite not having any legal documents, Binti wants to live a normal life and dreams of becoming a famous vlogger. Elias (11) runs his 'save-the-okapi-club' without the help of his father, who's moved to Brazil following his divorce with Elias's mother. The police raid Binti and Jovial's home, sending the two on the run and Binti into the path of Elias. When their parents meet shortly after, Binti quickly sees the perfect solution to all her problems: if she can match her dad with Elias' mom, they can get married and stay in Belgium.
Claire Bodson is a Belgian stage and film actress. She studied at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels and began working in theatre after developing an interest in acting. After some stage experiences at the Théâtre de l'Ancre in Charleroi, Bodson became a regular performer at the Théâtre National Wallonie-Bruxelles, starting in 1997.
Dominique Abel and Fiona Gordon are Belgian film and stage directors, writers and actors.
Madly in Life is a 2020 Belgian comedy-drama film written and directed by Ann Sirot and Raphaël Balboni in their feature directorial debut. The film stars Jo Deseure, Jean Le Peltier, Lucie Debay and Gilles Remiche, and follows an aging woman dealing with her progressing dementia with the help of her son. It was the last film in which Remiche starred before his death in 2022.
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