The making of The Bulldozer

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The Bulldozer by André Bosmans got 5-stars at BIAFF 2009. Christiane Surdiacourt tells us a bit about the man and the production. The film begins with four captions:

this is the story of Davy - 22 years old and mentally handicapped he cannot read or write the film tries to demonstrate that even people with downs syndrome have feelings and emotions

Davy made such a big impression

André Bosmans was born on 8th of July l939 and lives with his wife Annie in Galmaarden (in the Flemish Ardennes). They have a son, Marc, and a daughter, Heidi, who are doing the same job as their father: watchmaker-jeweller. André is still working and in his spare time he is vice-president of the Multi Media club Interactief Geraardsbergen, which is a young club (6 years) He is also a theatre-man: as an actor, a director and as the cameraman who films the plays.

His son plays saxophone in a non-professional jazz-band and his father films, with some club assistance, the rehearsals and the performances.

The main actor, Davy, didn't and is still not thinking too much about his part in the film. But his parents, especially his father, makes more fuss about their son (the youngest child of four) being a star. It is of course due to the fact that Davy got a lot of attention from all the people who know him personally and thus have seen the film.

The idea to make The Bulldozer with Davy grew from the day André saw him in a theatre play he was filming with a few club members. Davy had to cross the stage as a walk-on part. At the end of the play the actors greeted the public and at that precise moment Davy made such a big impression. It was like being THE star of the evening. André could not forget the fanaticism in Davy and so he decided to ask him to play a part in his film.

The other actors did not have any problems with the presence of Davy on the set. They accepted him as one of them. But dealing with Davy was not always that simple. Several times he had to be reminded of the rules and the director (André) had to have a lot of patience.

When the shooting of the film came to an end everybody was very happy that they made it, realising that they experienced something special, which gave them a huge satisfaction.

André selected his actors among people coming from various theatre circles in his region. This was an easy thing for him to do, because for many years he has filmed their new productions.

The shooting of the film ran on schedule, because everything was very well organized in order to avoid big problems. The editing itself took eight months of André's spare time and was done with Adobe 6.5

Up till now a lot of people have seen the film and each time André saw or heard that the audience was touched and enthusiastic about his film.

André used his own camera, a SONY DSR 3OO in DVCAM. Only for a few shots did he use it hand-held and for the most part he preferred to use a tripod. Natural daylight gave him enough light, but for a few shots he had to add light. To record the actors' voices he used a directional microphone.

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