Interview With Belgian Writer Director Tom Avermaet On Recent Feature "Hearts Of Stone" (2024)

Writer, director Tom Van Avermaet is a Belgian filmmaker known for his unique blend of surrealism and melancholia. His acclaimed short films, “Dreamtime” (2006) and “Death of a Shadow” (2012) (starring Matthias Schoenaerts), have garnered significant recognition both nationally and internationally. “Death of a Shadow” won the European Academy Award (European Film Award) for Best European Short and was nominated for an Academy Award (Oscar) for Best Live Action Short. 

Tom's highly anticipated new short film, “Hearts of Stone” (2024), featuring Noomi Rapace and Jessica Barden, had its national premiere at the Oostend Film Festival and it’s international debut summer 2024 at the LA Shorts International Film Festival and the Rhode Island International Film Festival, where it won respectively ‘Best International’ and the ‘Grand Prize for Best Live Action Short’, both Oscar Qualifying Prizes. In addition to his filmmaking, Tom is active as a commercial director, art curator, and all-round professional dreamer.

In an interview with Tom on his latest masterpiece “Hearts of Stone”, here is what he had to say:

Can you speak about your background and how you got into film?

TOM: Even from a very young age, I’ve loved storytelling and film. One memory as a kid that stands out is my parents taking our broken VCR to the repair shop and them finding a toy figurine that I had tried to put inside the device, trying this way to get my own stories on the (small) screen. That passion never really stopped, and I was probably the best customer at my local video rental place, even so much so that the proprietor (now sadly gone from this world as are most rental places) allowed me to choose films that weren’t exactly allowed for my age range. This finally led me to attend film school after graduating high school, the Royal Institute for Theatre, Cinema and Sound in Brussels, Belgium in particular. Under the tutelage of people like Bert Beyens, Stijn Coninx (Oscar nominated for his feature film “Daens”) and Ilse Somers I was able to learn the filmmaking process and experience the highs and lows of it myself, for which I will always be grateful. At the end of the course, I graduated with honors with my thesis film “Dreamtime”, which became my first short film that hit the festival circuit and got shown all around the world.

You’ve directed multiple short films that have been large productions. Can you tell us about those?”

TOM: As a creative I’ve always been drawn to the fantastical and the surreal, trying my best with each film that I make to shape an own little universe that encapsulates the stories I wanted to tell. I found inspiration in fellow professional dreamers like Stanley Kubrick, Guillermo Del Toro, Raoul Servais, Terry Gilliam, David Lynch, Krystof Kieslowkski and Darren Aronofksy to name a few. One of the things that always fueled my passion for cinema is the ability to make the unbelievable believable and to give a reality to dreams. This has been one of the hardest roads to take into making short film or film in general as to achieve that goal you usually need enough funding, not in the least because if your worlds feel fake, the audience loses their ability to believe the story you want to tell. I hope that I, with the help of numerous collaborators over the years in every department, have been able to do just that. My first film was my thesis film “Dreamtime’”, which portrays a dark Orwellian future where every facet of life is dictated by time and the ever-ticking clock. In this world, a rebel starts operating, a ‘Sandman’ that lets people dream of a different world. The main character, someone who seemingly thrives in the rigid structure of this dictatorship of minutes, encounters the Sandman and this dream world, which turns his life upside down.

TOM CONT’D: My second short film was a project called “Death of a shadow”, here we follow the tale of a soldier that died in WWI and got stuck in a kind of limbo between life and death. He finds himself in service of a strange collector of shadows of people at the moment that they die, and he is tasked to collect one of these moments of death for each day that he lived. If he succeeds, he can get his own shadow back, which is currently part of the collection, and get a second chance at life. My newest film and third short film “Hearts of Stone”, which is currently on its festival run, is a modern fable in which we follow a woman that acts as a living statue whose in love with a real statue. 

How you find financing for your films? 

TOM: The financing of these film is always a journey in itself. My thesis film “Dreamtime” was mostly auto funded with student jobs, help from my parents (who have been very supportive throughout my career) and contributions from the school. With this film I was able to win something called the ‘VAF wild card’, which a professional jury awards each year to what they deem to the best student film of that year. The VAF or Vlaams Audiovisueel Fonds (Flemish Audio-Visual Fund) is the main funding body for film in Flanders, the region where I’m from in Belgium and this award automatically grants you funding for a first professional short film project, with added guidance of a mentor. This for me was the legendary Belgian animator Raoul Servais, who we sadly lost a couple years ago. As we needed more money to complete this project, we also were fortunate to gain support of the Champagne Ardennes Region in France, making the film a co-production with that country. The film was also fully shot in the region. We were also able to use the Belgian Tax Shelter, an excellent tax rebate system in Belgium with a tax shelter partner and we also gained support from other institutions like Sabam, who’ve supported all three of my short films. This film was produced by Serendipity Films as the main production company and Perspective Films in France as co-producer. 

TOM CONT’D: “Hearts of Stone” was once again a co-production with support of the VAF, this time with Croatia, where we were able to secure extra funding, also having Fortis Film Financing as our Tax Rebate partner. The film was all shot in the city of Antwerp in Belgium, with support of the city and our two main locations, the Middelheim Museum and Handelsbeurs Antwerpen. This film was produced by Bulletproof Cupid, main producer Katleen Goossens who also was part of the production management team for “Death of a shadow” and Wim Goosens, the co-producing partner Jaako Dobra Produkcija in association with Nukleus Film. In all my films I’ve also played some kind of production role, being the main producer for my thesis, associate producer for “Death” and Executive, Music and VFX Producer for ‘Hearts’, so there’s always been a portion of these films that was self-funded. I will bleed financially (and literally) to get my films made the way I think they should be made if it’s necessary, but I was always helped by partners to make the films a reality, without whom it would not have been possible to complete them.

And what do you like about short films that features cannot do?

TOM: I think the magical thing about short film is that even in the short period of time you have, you can still transport an audience on an emotional journey into a completely different world. That in itself is an art form and sometimes an under-appreciated one, comparable to the short story in literature. I think if people in general were more aware of the wonderful little gems that were available to be found in the short film genre, they’d be pleasantly surprised. And it takes about as much work and effort to produce them as a feature (mine in a way I would call short features), which is their biggest drawback when making them, but what makes them stand out to an audience as well. I never really experienced the days where a short film preceded a feature in the cinemas, but with the theatres looking to provide something extra for an audience I would launch an appeal to chains to consider programming short films before features again. Festivals do it with success and most cinemas have reduced the number of ads they program before the features, anyway, so why not bring back something that might give your customer something special.

Do you have a favorite project you have worked on that you are most proud of?

TOM: I think us filmmakers look at our films somewhat as our children (the birthing process is painful and the post-natal depression a very real thing), so choosing a favorite is something akin to “Sophie’s Choice”. All the films I’ve made so far have somehow been personal and contain a part of that’s now forever part of those movies (I like to say sometimes that I only get that part back briefly when I experience the films with an audience). So, I would say I’m proud of all of them, they’ve all been long and difficult journeys to get made, my professional shorts took multiple and multiple years for different reasons. They’ve at times driven me almost to madness and despair, but they are my small legacy on this planet (which I still somehow hope to build) so I am proud of having made them, maybe even more so because of all the hardship in the creation process. I think for all the films I’ve been told at some point during its path to completion that what I was trying to do was impossible and with the help of many, many talented people I was hopefully able to prove those doubters wrong.

Your film "Death of a Shadow" was nominated for an Oscar. What was that like? 

TOM: About as surreal as my projects themselves. It was definitely a surprise we won what is called an Oscar Qualifying prize at the Los Angeles International Short Film Festival, which makes you eligible for consideration by the academy and ours at that time was one of the last of those of the year and that with our international festival debut. Usually, films circulate for a year or more before entering the race, but we jumped in straight away and then got to the short list and nomination only a couple of months after premiering. It changed my life and is an honor that I will always cherish. Being nominated is a mark of approval that you carry for the rest of your life, but it also comes with expectations and pressure for anything you do after, also very much from my own side. It’s a very special feeling when your whole native country is rooting for you and hopefully one that I can recapture at a future moment again in my career. 

Your most recent film is "Hearts of Stone". What was the inspiration for this story? 

TOM: I’ve always been fascinated by both statues and living statues, street performers who dress up and act as statues. In the Low Countries, the region in the world that I’m from, containing The Netherlands and Belgium, this is something quite popular and you have big festivals where artists from all over the world attend. I wanted to explore what the life of someone in that community would be like and I wanted to give my own, romantic interpretation of that world. In terms of statues, I’m a big lover of graveyards, not because I’m that macabre, but mostly because you can find some of the most beautiful sculptures hidden away between the tombs. The main statue in “Hearts of Stone” was inspired by a statue in a Parisian cemetery (not the biggest one though). It always saddened me that that there’s all these beautiful works of art in the world that mostly get forgotten, so I wanted to talk a little about that in the film. Besides that, the film is very much a love story (all my films so far have been) and as I’m drawn to impossible love stories, I felt it almost logical that someone that acts as a statue would fall in love with a real statue, perhaps the most impossible love story of all. Outside of that I wanted to take these figures that seem seeped in the past and talk about modern loneliness and the desperate search for connection in our overly connected world. 

Noomi Rapace is amazing in this. How difficult was it to turn her into a statue?

TOM: We were very fortunate that both Noomi and Jessica wanted to be part of this project, which with their busy schedules isn’t a given. Luckily, I had the help of a talented costume and make-up department to help create her look, led by Sofie Callaerts and Katrien Frenssen respectively. As for the living statue aspect, Noomi was a natural and she was able to master the art without a hitch. For both actresses it was a challenge of course as they were in make-up and costume for most of the shoot, but they powered through and gave it their all, for which I’m forever grateful. I think as filmmakers we’re always a little in awe of our cast as they’re the ones who must bring our words and visions to life, layered with their own interpretations and history. 

Where can people see your films? And where are most short films distributed?

TOM: “Death of a shadow” is still being distributed on several platforms at this point, but depending on the country this might differ (Amazon Prime and Disney + at this time I believe), “Dreamtime” is a little more hidden, but can still be found by those who do some research (and who are willing to maybe still buy a DVD). “Hearts of Stone” is still fully on its festival run, so for the rest of the year it will be playing at festivals around the world (if you’re interested to see it at a festival near you, you can always mail them and tell them to invite our film). Afterwards I hope it will also find its way on one of the platforms that are out there for short film.

TOM CONT’D: In that sense I think most short films rely heavily on the festival circuit, especially films like mine who are made for the big screen. Outside of the academy short films, not enough films are distributed in theatres (which again I would make a plea for, for any theatrical chains out there, bring back short films in combo with a feature). There are many ways to find short films, places like Vimeo or YouTube, or streaming services which are more and more making an effort to pick up and distribute short film content. And there are specialized streamers like Alter, Dust, Omeletto , etc… who feature shorts to the wider audience. But there’s always room for more avenues and I do hope that the art house cinemas at least start programming them even outside of a festival context. 

In your opinion, what makes indie filmmaking so difficult? 

TOM: One of the things that makes filmmaking as difficult as it is beautiful, is its collaborative nature, where many people are needed. Each film brings together what amounts to a small army of highly skilled technicians and artists that all must work together within the framework that the screenplay and the director’s vision provide. Compared to other art forms, we can’t really make something just by ourselves, except maybe in very rare occasions. I personally will always need talented people to help me breathe life into my stories, talent in front or behind the camera, but that always comes with a massive cost, be it funding or time or something else and that can become massively frustrating and lead your process to take years and years. 

What advice do you have for young producers out there?

TOM: In terms of advice, I would always say "prepare, prepare, prepare," as much as you can. There will always be things that don’t quite go as planned and things that need to be changed on set (and rightly so), but pre-production is such an important phase where you can really make choices that will prevent a budget from spiraling out of control later. Outside of that, cast well, not just your actors, but all the functions on the film. These are the people which will make the process work or not and it’s very important to pick people that are a right fit for both you and the project. I was fortunate to always find people that believed in my projects and wanted to join me in sometimes hard conditions, but it’s so important to find those talented people that also match your way of thinking.

TOM CONT’D: Then I would say also have a space for empathy. A filmset is a highly stressful environment and the making of a film at all its phases is extremely taxing on filmmakers. Be kind to each other and find ways support each other, because if the film becomes a real battleground between egos, it will only get that much tougher to complete it. Arguments and fights will happen, but also find time to calm down and look for solutions. But if things really aren’t working and visions completely clash, also don’t be afraid to fire people if they don’t fit the project. It’s sad that this sometimes happens and it’s not a fun situation, but as filmmakers the responsibility is yours to make the best possible film and if you discover that something isn’t working, don’t let things fester and sometimes make the tough calls, which is usually best for both parties. Lastly, I would say, and this is a very personal thing, make every detail matter. Filmmaking brings together so many different elements, but it’s important to keep in mind that the small things do make a difference, if not consciously then subconsciously. 

Why is it so important for filmmakers to attend Cannes and other film festivals? 

TOM: Festivals are the lifeblood of the independent film world. It’s where you make contacts to create new project, where (in my case) you find lifelong friends and collaborators. The co-writer for “Hearts of Stone”, Alison Kathleen Kelly, I first met at the Irvine Film Festival when touring with “Death of a Shadow”. Top genre festivals like ‘Filmquest’, with whom I have strong ties as participant, judge and screener, make it a point of pride to bring filmmakers together and you see this leading to new films for the next editions. Places like Cannes, Venice or Sundance are where we all aspire to one day be shown. I still haven’t had that honor, but there are many festivals and festival teams that did appreciate my work and took me in as part of their little family, for which I will always be grateful. This is also why I always try to go to as many festivals as I can when selected, of course depending on what I can afford both money and timewise, as I feel that process of doing a Q&A with an audience, being there to talk about the film, is an essential part of the filmmaking process and is very much appreciated. Also, particularly for short films it offers an opportunity for these projects to be shown in a communal, cinema setting on the big screen, which is really a crucial function they offer. It’s a tough process though, the film festival dance, where every selection is a triumph and every rejection breaks your heart, but in a way, I guess that reflects life itself, which we all try to do in some way with our films I suppose. But for the festivals it would be good to also always to consider that most people that submit to your festival are human beings that tried to put their all into telling their story and that even though you might not like what they do, they still deserve empathy and respect. It becomes all too easy to see filmmakers as numbers, while maybe they deserve a little more, even you don’t have a place for them at your festival. 

What will you be working on next? 

TOM: Circulating with my current film has inspired me to see if I might not have another short film in me. I have a few stories I’d be interested in adapting that only suit the short form. But my main goal is a first feature film, for which I’m actively looking for the right book or graphic novel to adapt (there is an idea for an original script as well but hope to find something to adapt to perhaps speed up the process first). But finding that match takes a lot of reading and a lot of time. Then there’s also a limited series that’s a bit of a passion project that I hope to further develop with the right partners, the story of a famous Belgian artist who was both a unique and wonderfully creative individual called Panamarenko. So, a lot of ideas as always, just finding ways to bring them to life, hopefully in the relative recent future.

Tom Avermaet Filmography:

(2006) Droomtijd (Dreamtime)

VAF Wild Card winner, Meliès D’Or Nominee

Selections at dozens of festivals and multiple awards

(2012) Dood van een schaduw

Academy Award Nominee (Oscar) / European Film Award Winner / Meliès D’Or Nominee

Selections at dozens of festivals and multiple awards

(2024) Hearts of Stone

Currently on it’s festival tour, winner of two oscar qualifying prizes amongst others (Best

International at LA Shorts International Film Festival and Grand Prize for best live action

short at the Rhode Island International Film Festival)

Interview by Vanessa McMahon