Heysel 85 Earns Asian Premiere at Tokyo Film Festival — SkimNews
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- Heysel 85 received its Asian premiere at the Tokyo Film Festival as the film began its international rollout nearly eight months after its debut in Berlin.
- Heysel 85 draws on the 1985 Heysel Stadium disaster, in which 39 people died before the European Cup Final between Liverpool and Juventus; Mihai says Belgium's shared shock over the event still endures.
- Teodora Ana Mihai said the film spends little time recreating the deadly events and instead interrogates the structural flaws that allowed them, centering the question of whether police and politicians should cancel the match or let it proceed.
- Marius Panduru advised Mihai to shoot the live-action material on 16mm so it would blend with archival footage; the format required production days to be cut to control costs, though Mihai says the result looks better than the available money allowed.
- Heysel 85 is scheduled to open in Belgium through Kinepolis on November 18 and in the UK through Icon on November 20, following positive buzz after its Berlin premiere.
- Two Lives, Mihai's fourth feature in development, follows two brothers and their families across a recurring summer holiday before one brother's death leaves his widow raising two teenage boys.
- Hans Everaert proposed the Heysel material to Mihai, who initially questioned whether she was the right person to tell the story before embracing it as a challenge outside her comfort zone.
Why it matters: Belgium and UK viewers can see Heysel 85 in cinemas on November 18 and 20 after its Berlin and Tokyo premieres. The release brings Mihai’s stated focus on the structural flaws behind 39 deaths into public view, shifting attention from the match’s spectacle to the shared shock that remains in Belgian memory.
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