The early word I'm hearing from people in the know is that Koen Mortier's Ex Drummer could very well be the big break out film of this year's Toronto International Film Festival. Mortier's debut picture is built from a notorious Belgian novel that draws comparisons to Trainspotting and Man Bites Dog and the trailer is positively addicted. Here's a sample of the TIFF write up for this one ...
Popular author Dries (Dries Vanhegen) is approached out of the blue by three disabled misfits seeking a drummer for their band. They are attempting to grab punk-rock notoriety via a one-off performance at a local rock fest. Singer Koen (Norman Baert) is a woman-hating skinhead rapist who literally lives his life upside down; bass player Jan (stand-up comedian Gunter Lamoot) has a paralyzed arm due to an absurd masturbation accident; and deaf guitarist Ivan (Sam Louwyck) lives in squalor with his druggie wife and baby daughter. Dries descends from his wealthy bourgeois Olympus of fame and ménages à trois with his beautiful wife and her friends to slum with the band, seeking inspiration for a possible book. His disability? He can’t play drums.
The website is online and the film itself actually released far enough back in it's homeland that it there is now an English subtitled DVD release for it available in The Netherlands. Somehow I think this will be on my shelves soon ...
just to clear up a possible mixup. The book this is based on is in the Dutch language but is, like the movie, Belgian (if belgian is the correct way to say from belgium :-)). I somehow missed this when it played at the IFFR and in it's small cinema run over here but it's still high on my 'to see' list!
It's indeed based on a novel by the Belgian cult-author Herman Brusselmans (who drums himself btw). The northern part of Belgium (Flanders) speaks Flemish which is closely related to Dutch, hence the confusion :-)
I've seen it in cinema here several months ago. Defenately recommended, maybe one of the best Belgian movies since Man Bites Dog.