Private Project

This No Land

An old cowboy mourns at a little girl’s grave. He returns to his pickup, to take a seat next to 8 year old Laura. He promises her to take her to Disneyland. It’s the beginning of a peculiar journey where they come across two couples in a gas station shop. But all is not what it seems ...

  • Alexander Decommere
    Director
  • Jean Ryckebosch
    Writer
  • Veerle Appelmans
    Producer
  • Patrick Pevenage
    Key Cast
    "Opa Sudoku"
  • Lisa Lelieur
    Key Cast
    "Laura"
  • Robrecht Vanden Thoren
    Key Cast
    "Tom"
  • Anne-Laure Vandeputte
    Key Cast
    "Linde"
  • Peter Van den Eede
    Key Cast
    "Marc"
  • Titus De Voogdt
    Key Cast
    "Maarten"
  • Project Type:
    Short
  • Genres:
    Drama, Western, Fantasy
  • Runtime:
    16 minutes 22 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    July 1, 2018
  • Country of Origin:
    Belgium
  • Country of Filming:
    Belgium, Spain
  • Language:
    Dutch
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    2.39:1
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Alexander Decommere

Alexander Decommere is a Belgian independent film and theater director.

He graduated at the RITCS film school in Brussels in 2007 with the apocalyptic short film "Quietus". Since then, he has directed two no-to-low-budget short films, two documentaries and four theatrical plays, one which got him an award for best director (2013-2014).

"This No Land" is Alexander’s first short movie that got financial support from the Flanders Audiovisual Fund (VAF). The film was produced by the Belgian production company Vivi Film.

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Director Statement

There are three ways in which you can ‘obtain’ kids: either you make them, you adopt them or you steal them. I was interested in a kidnapping out of grief.

It was the ideal setup for a layered, character-driven story about an old man being torn apart by grief over his dead granddaughter and trying to cope with this loss — in a very wrong way.

We constructed a story-within-a-story to keep the viewer on edge and curious about what is really going on with this character, until the twist in the very end.

The writer and I always talked about the grandpa Sudoku character as an old cowboy in a ghost town kind of world. This was the way we saw the dream world into which grandpa Sudoku projects his fears of being caught as a kidnapper. That’s why I decided to shoot the film in a western scenery.

This opened the door to bring an audiovisual ode to the Italian spaghetti-westerns of the 60s, which I so deeply love. Those western movies are often about redemption, about coming full circle with your past. No character is only good or only bad.

As is usually the case with short films, my goal as a director is to explore and establish my style and craft as a filmmaker. From a storyteller’s point of view, this film proved to be extremely challenging; from a director’s point of view, no less rewarding.

I’m proud to have directed "This No Land" and I hope it may accelerate my career as a filmmaker.