Sci-Fi 'Soma' Begins Filming With O'Brien, Sluiters
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- Director Miklós Keleti is making his feature debut with sci-fi drama Soma, produced as a Belgium-Canada-Netherlands-Estonia co-production with filming underway in Estonia (Tallinn and Käsmu) and the Netherlands through mid-September.
- Mark O'Brien and Anneke Sluiters lead the cast as scientist couple Paul and Sarah, whose son Theo suffers from a rare language disorder; the story turns on Paul's obsession with an experimental communication drug that threatens to tear the family apart.
- Four production companies are shepherding the film: Velvet Films (Belgium, led by Sebastian Schelenz), Goodbye Productions (Canada, Amber Ripley), Three Brothers (Estonia, Elina Litvinova), and Volya Films (Netherlands, Denis Vaslin), with Game Theory handling Canadian distribution.
- Financing comes from the Film Center of the Wallonia Brussels Federation, Telefilm Canada, the Netherlands Film Fund, and the Estonian Film Institute, with Belgian broadcasters RTBF, Be tv and Proximus also on board.
- Key creative hires include Belgian cinematographer Virginie Surdej (Calle Malaga), Estonian production designer Tiiu-Ann Pello (Tenet), and Belgian editor Yannick Leroy (Austral), alongside cast members Leonhard Kõuhkna and Lucie Debay (Omen).
Why it matters: Keleti's *Soma* illustrates how mid-budget European sci-fi is increasingly assembled through four-country co-production structures, pooling public film-fund money from Belgium, Canada, the Netherlands and Estonia to back debut directors. The film's father-son premise — a cure that risks destroying the family it aims to save — gives the package a commercial hook beyond art-house circuits.
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