2023 Nominees

Catching The Pirate King

Diplodokus, VRT, Beside Productions, Flemish Audiovisual Fund, Screen Brussels, Federation Studios

BELGIUM

- Crime & Investigative

The hijacking of the Pompei resembles many other hijackings from that period. The undercover operation of the Belgian police, on the other hand, is unique in its genre. The justice department of a country as small as Belgium managing to apprehend the mastermind behind an international crisis, is more than worthy of a film adaptation. The filmmakers have been working on telling this story for more than three years. They first read about the arrest of Afweyne in the newspaper and immediately felt drawn to the different aspects of the story: greed, thriller and international politics. Also the fact that Afweyne’s story could be connected to a much larger very complex problem of piracy in general was one of the reasons they wanted to tell this story.