Maldoror
Fabrice du Welz (Calvaire) considers a pitch-black page in modern Belgian history with this sinister crime thriller about the investigation into the disappearance of two girls in 1995. Loosely based on the Dutroux case.
Young policeman Paul Chartier has chosen to take the side of the law in order to escape his childhood with a criminal father and a mother working in the sex industry. When he marries Sicilian Gina, he is accepted into her warm-hearted family. Paul puts this happy family life at risk when he becomes increasingly obsessed with surveilling convicted sex offender Marcel Dedieu. This operation, called Maldoror, is fiercely frustrated by the competence dispute between the three police forces in Belgium. Paul becomes convinced that Dedieu is part of a network of paedophiles reaching into the highest circles. For him, there is only one option: to take matters into his own hands and start a manhunt by himself.
With Maldoror, director Du Welz delves heavily into the sore spot of the Dutroux case, named after the criminal who was arrested in 1996 and sentenced to life in 2004 for kidnapping six girls and murdering four of them. After Maldoror, Du Welz plans to make two more films about shameful episodes in Belgian history: the Belgian colonisation of Congo and collaboration with the Nazis on the Russian front in World War II. (jc)