Does the subject of the film draw on your experience with documentaries as well as your work as a photographer? - Yes, for the background. I got to know some homing pigeon raisers when I took pictures of them at prize-giving ceremonies. There is something typically Belgian about the whole thing. But this only served as a framework for the film. I was more interested in portraying the psychology of the characters, their human relations. I wanted to tell the story of a father, a family man at the dawn of the year 2000, living with the same social and financial pressures we all know. But I wanted to tell his story in the form of a fable about modernity. The film is a chronicle of one year in the life of a Walloon family stuck in an everyday life, that is never easy and often absurd. More exactly it is the story of a family man and his daily combat, which is both comical and moving, to provide a safe, comfortable, happy life for his family. The film is also the point of view of an 8 year old girl, the way she sees her colourful father... I drew inspiration from my own professional experience to imagine the father's job. The episodes of the accident, the illegal immigrant and the hailstones are things I actually experienced. Slightly changed of course to fit into the scenario. It may seem that there is something amoral and insensitive in the father's reaction to these incidents. But this is partly because you get accustomed to this kind of thing when you meet up with it regularly in your work. It becomes ordinary. What does the title mean? - It is a common expression in Belgium used by people who raise homing pigeons. The convoyeurs are the people who transport the carrier pigeons. When they get to the launching site, which may be a thousand kilometers away from Belgium, they get the weather predictions for the flight pattern of the pigeons. If it's good, they release the birds. If it's bad, they delay the flight. In which case, the proprietors are informed by a radio announcement every Saturday morning: les convoyeurs attendent, the carriers are waiting. I like this title because it also conveys the idea of the characters who are waiting. Why did you choose to shoot in black and white? - The use of black and white and the composition of fixed and often wide frames are formal options related to the writing of the film, later intensified in collaboration with Philippe Guilbert, chief cameraman. In addition to emotions provoked by the story, we wanted to provoke and independent emotion related to the image, to the attention given to the formal aspect. We wanted to go beyond what was everyday and ordinary, to give the film a poetic dimension such as can be found in the work of photographers such as Doisneau and Lartigue. The choice of black and white and the composition of the frame went in this direction. Black and white photography in itself creates an abstraction with regard to reality. Further, we took care to give the narrative a timeless aspect, so that this exceptional story could be received as a contemporary fable. In fact, these options are exactly the opposite of my usual approach to the documentary. But we did not want to make "Convoyeurs" into a false fictionalized documentary or a "hand-held camera" social film... Were you inspired by Italian neo-realism? - I work with my own tools, consciously or not. I like an ironic, teasing approach. For me it's a kind of tenderness. It can be found in my documentary films and my short film LE SIGNALEUR. Humour and mockery give the film a broader reading, less one-sided. At least I hope so . Aside from the formal aspect of the film, it is perhaps this intimacy of the comical and the tragic that relate the film to Italian comedy. But there is no fixation on a genre. Does this mixture humour and tenderness originate in the tone of your reportages for Strip-Tease? - Within the Strip-Tease series, each participating director has his own vision. There is no dogma, no editorial line. It is true that I learned the trade by doing those reportages. Our working conditions at Strip-Tease are quite unusual for a television production: for a thirteen minute subject we are allowed ten days for shooting, fifteen days for editing. And we shoot in 16mm. I think that previous experience in making documentaries is an extra when you turn to fiction: you are more aware of what can happen spontaneously on the scene, you don't stick religiously to the scenario. And it seems to me that irony is very appropriate to Belgium. We are a small country, and the only way we can show our best face is by laughing at ourselves... Where does the action of the film take place? - The characters live on the outskirts of Charleroi, a once prosperous mining town that lives on its past. In my work as a newspaper photographer for VERS L'AVENIR, I travelled all over Walloonia and I got to know this area. I took a liking to these landscapes which are so typical, where nature starts to creep up and reconquer its territory, against an industrial background. It's the image of the slag heap overgrown with weeds where Roger goes to get Luise at the end of the film. The scene is realistic, but the setting carries a strong poetic charge. Some people refer to a Belgian surrealism, particularly with the door in the garden, reminiscent of a Magritte. In fact I am worlds away from surrealism, and much closer to a kind of hyperrealism. Surrealism, strictly speaking, arises out of the dream world, the unconscious. Here we stick right with the real, we stay down to earth. The surrealist label is a bit outworn from overuse. Personally I am much closer to the school of the documentary, which I think is the true force and identity of Belgian cinema. Many of the roles are played by non-professional actors. - The adolescents in the film have never acted before. The film is an extraordinary, unexpected adventure for Morgane Simon (Luise), Lisa Lacroix (Jocelyne) and Jean-Françoise Devigne (Michel). All three of them come from my region. I was truly impressed by their natural gracefulness in front of the camera. And the extras add colour and something genuine that I certainly could not have made up from professionals. The choice of Benoît Poelvoorde for the father was a natural one. He is an old friend of mine from Namur. He knows the film world and comes from the region. He played in my short film LE SIGNALEUR. I never had the least doubt that he could portray this moving, irascible, comical father. I will be forever grateful to him for trusting me and accepting to venture into this unknown territory. It was a joy to work with an actor who is so creative and who invested himself totally in our project. Dominique Baeyens (his wife in the film) has experience on both stage and screen. Bouli Lanners, who plays the coach, has also acted in both film and television. This is the first film for Philippe Grand'Henry (Félix), whose previous experience was on stage. The character of the father is very strong. - The danger was to pass judgement on my characters and confine the view to that sole judgement. Which would have meant condemming the father. All the effort, notably with Benoît Poelvoorde, was to give this "jerk" attenuating circumstances so that in the last analysis he would attract sympathy. We really care for this father. Roger is a man who is afraid, afraid for himself, afraid for his children, and so he doesn't always act with deliberation. But he is so full of energy and goodwill. Pressure from society and the values it pushes certainly does not help him make his choices. The absence of spirituality in the broadest sense characterises the father as well as the world around him. Like that door standing in the garden, the world is going crazy and storms ahead without a thought...

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