Canneseries Entry ‘1985’: A Coming of Age Tale That Explores the Origins of the Modern Era
John Hopewell Chief International CorrespondentThe latest from Belgium’s Eyeworks Film & TV Drama and director Wouter Bouvijn – who teamed on Canneseries hits “The Twelve” and “Red Light” – “1985,” sold by Studiocanal, works on multiple levels as a coming-of-age series.Two young Gendarmarie police recruits, Marc and Franky, and his sis Vicky, a law student and pirate radio DJ, move to Brussels. They are soon caught up in police corruption – insider drug trading, heavy fire arms robbery – and the rise of the brutal Nijvel gang.Created by Willem Wallyn (“Albatros”), this is the coming-of-age story of three unbreakable friends loss of innocence, and that of a nation in its leaders.It is also an origins tale, of the forging of the modern age. Belgium’s distrust of its forces of law and order and political class rankles to this day, shared now with other countries, as does its politics of confrontation which Vicky denounces in an on-air monolog in Ep.