Emotional family story with surprising twists
The concept of the previous season remains unchanged, the main character explores his own death, but the environment, storylines and characters are completely new. This time, Beau Séjour is not a hotel but the name of a sailing boat.
Former Naval Commander Maurice (Gene Bervoets) sees his own corpse hanging from the mast of the sail boat Beau Séjour. He does not believe that he committed suicide and wants to convince his family that more is going on. Therefore, he begins to explore his own death.
Gene Bervoets (Maurice): ‘As an actor, there are only a few occasions in your career when you read a script and go: this is it. In Beau Séjour 2, everything’s right. The brilliant original idea of the first season is so pure that it’s another dimension in this new series. It is literally larger than life. The character of Maurice is every actor’s dream. Everything’s included: it is a quest full of drama, humor, love and passion to the mortal man, to yourself.
Sanne Nuyens (screenwriter): ‘In its core we tell an emotional family drama about a man who has been given a second chance to restore the relationship with his family, but it is again a whodunnit with a twist. The viewer can certainly expect some haunting plot twists.’
Beau Séjour is a story by Bert Van Dael (Beau Séjour, The Twelve), written by Sanne Nuyens (Beau Séjour, the twelve) and Roel Mondelaers (Cub, Plan Bart). Directors are – just like for the first season – Nathalie Basteyns (Facades, The Outlaws) and Kaat Beels (Tabula rasa, Facades, The Outlaws).
The series is produced by Pieter Van Huyck, Ivy Vanhaecke and Saskia Verboven. Creative producers are Sanne Nuyens and Nathalie Basteyns. The distribution of the series is handled by the French Lagardère Studios Distribution.
Nathalie Basteyns and Kaat Beels (directors): ‘In contrast with the first season, we wanted to tell an even more exciting story with warm images. We will let our viewers enjoy the fantastic locations during a sultry, hot summer in Zeebrugge.’
Pieter Van Huyck (head of scripted De Mensen): ‘It’s great that we can continue Beau Séjour with almost the same team. Even before the start of production, we can already say that in addition to VRT, also ARTE France & Germany and NPO in the Netherlands will broadcast the series.’
The first season took out an average of 1.4 million viewers on VRT, was also broadcasted in France and Germany via Arte and was available via Netflix.
The shooting of the second season will run till the end of November.
Beau Séjour 2 is a series by production company De Mensen for VRT, in coproduction with Column Film and Gardner & Domm, with the support of the VAF Media Fund, the Creative Europe Programme – MEDIA of the European Union, the Netherlands Film Production Incentive and the Tax Shelter measure of the Federal Government and with the collaboration of Visit Bruges City Film Offices of the city of Bruges and the Belgian Navy.
