Undercover, a production by Flemish production company De Mensen for VRT and Netflix, is the only Belgian series nominated for the competition at the Canneséries festival. This new festival has the ambition to become for series what the Cannes Film Festival is for movies. The organization kicks off their first edition during MIPTV - the leading conference on international television - with some impressive world premieres. Undercover will be screened on April 10th, in the presence of lead actors Tom Waes and Anna Drijver.

Canneséries

The organization received over 150 submissions, of which only 10 are selected for competition. Undercover will compete against other promising international titles such as the Israeli ‘When Heroes Fly’, the Mexican ‘Aquì En La Tierra’ from Golden Globe winner Gael Garcia Bernal (Coco), the American ‘Killing Eve’ with Sandra Oh (Grey’s Anatomy) and the Norwegian ‘The State of Happiness’. . The jury, led by Harlan Coben (Home, Fool Me Once) and with Michael Kenneth Williams (The Wire, 12 Years a Slave…) amongst others, will hand out the awards during a live ceremony on Canal+ on April 11th.

Lead actor Tom Waes: “Playing this part alongside amazing actors like Anna Drijver, Kevin Janssens and Frank Lammers has been an incredible experience. The fact that our show received this selection, while still in postproduction, is a true gift. Joining major stars on the red carpet in Cannes will be a new experience for me. But most of all I hope the audiences will be just as enthusiast about Undercover as the people at Canneséries. That’s even more exciting…”

Pieter Van Huyck, Head of Drama at De Mensen: “When our distributing partner Federation Entertainment called us with the news of the selection, we were pleasantly surprised. This is a huge compliment for showrunner Nico Moolenaar and the entire team behind Undercover, and deservingly so. It is thrilling to compete with the ‘big guys’, especially being from a small country like Belgium and with our limited budgets. It’s amazing that more and more Flemish productions succeed in breaking through in Europe. This evolution is rewarding for the industry and all the driven creators.”

Other series premiering at Canneséries are the internationally renowned ‘Versailles’ and the brand new ‘Safe’, with Michael C. Hall (Dexter) and Amanda Abbington(Sherlock).

 

Undercover

Tom Waes and Anna Drijver portray two undercover agents on a dangerous mission. Their target: Dutchman Ferry Bouman, one of the largest XTC-producers in the world. Although he lives in a fancy villa, he spends most of his weekends and holidays in a chalet on a camp ground nearby. The Belgian federal police install two undercover agents, a man and a woman playing a couple, on the camp site to make contact and infiltrate the XTC-network.

Undercover is produced by Pieter Van Huyck, Ivy Vanhaecke and Jan Theys. Nico Moolenaar (Missing Persons Unit), Piet Matthys and Bart Uytdenhouwen are the scriptwriters. Nico is also showrunner on the series. The series is directed by Eshref Reybrouck (Cordon) and Frank Devos (Chaussée d’Amour). The cast consists of Tom Waes (New Texas, The Memory of a Killer, Difficult Destinations), Anna Drijver (Love Life, Bride Flight, Loft), Frank Lammers (Black Book, Michiel de Ruyter, Bullhead), Elise Schaap (Valentino, Ja ik wil!, Familie Kruys), Raymond Thiry (Penoza, Wolf & The Paradise Suite) and Kevin Janssens (The Ardennes, Missing Persons Unit).

Undercover will be broadcast in 2019 on VRT and has been acquired by Netflix, ZDF and Proximus. Federation Entertainment controls the rights in France and the worldwide distribution.

Undercover is a series from De Mensen for VRT, in cooperation with Proximus, Netflix, Dutch FilmWorks, ZDF, Federation Entertainment, Good Friends, Gardner and Domm, Gallop and the tax shelter measure from the Belgian federal government.