The Carriers Are Waiting
Dark, absurd, provocative, biting, anarchic: these are just some of the terms that best define the unique brand of humour that has flourished in Belgian cinema, especially in Wallonia, over the last few decades. While Belgian comedy has many facets, ranging from ferocity to self-deprecation, it always has a knack for pressing where it hurts while daring to laugh about it, painting hard-hitting social portraits, and putting our laborious lives into perspective.
Winner of the Bronze Horse, 1999 Stockholm International Film Festival
Roger Closset, an ordinary news photographer based in the Charleroi area, dreams of entering the record books. He decides that the best way to achieve this is for Michel, his 15-year-old son, to open and close a door more than 40,000 times in 24 hours.
Benoît Mariage
Benoît Mariage is a Belgian television and film director. After earning a law degree from UCL, he obtained a filmmaking diploma from the Institut National Supérieur des Arts du Spectacle in Brussels in 1987. He began his professional career with photojournalism for the newspaper Vers l'Avenir before transitioning to directing for the RTBF television magazine Strip-tease, where he created numerous segments. He later founded his own production company, producing several documentaries, some focusing on Africa. Mariage played a journalist in the film Man Bites Dog in 1992. He directed his first fiction film in 1997: The Signalman, a black-and-white short film that won several awards, including the Critics' Grand Prize at Cannes and the Jury Prize at the Clermont-Ferrand Festival. In 1999, his film The Carriers Are Waiting won the Bronze Horse at the Stockholm International Film Festival.
