Cash? Cash!

If you're from Flanders, Belgium, and you know a thing or two about movies, then the name of Pierre Druot surely must ring a bell. The man devoted his entire life to Belgian cinema; - first as writer/director, then as producer, and then as President of the VAF (which is a government institution that decides what film projects receive funding and how much). Druot will mainly be remembered for his work and influence at the VAF, but he also was a bit of a pioneer when he was younger. Together with his pal Paul Collet, Druot was among the first students to graduate from the Flemish film-academy RITS. With a lot of enthusiasm but hardly any money, Collet and Druot started working on their debut feature "Cash? Cash!" straight after they graduated.

In all honesty, "Cash? Cash!" does look & feel a lot like a student project. The film revolves around rivalries and tensions within a youth/street gang. There are a few cool scenes and a couple of intriguing characters, but there isn't any coherence or structure, and whenever someone opens his/her mouth to speak, only amateurish and utterly implausible dialogs come out. It's a rather trashy effort, but we all have to start out somewhere, I guess, even the President of the film treasury department. Druot's next two collaborations with Paul Collet, "L'étreinte" and "Death of a Nun", were much better already.