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Jaco Van Dormael (born 1957, Ixelles, Belgium) is a Belgian film director, screenwriter and playwright. His complex and critically acclaimed films are especially noted for their respectful and sympathetic portrayal of people with mental and physical disabilities. In the 1980s, he became interested in filmmaking and produced a number of short films that aroused considerable critical interest. Van Dormael made his feature-length debut in 1991 with Toto le Héros (Toto the hero), a tale about a man who believes his life was "stolen" from him when he was switched at birth, told in a complex... MORE

Jaco Van Dormael (born 1957, Ixelles, Belgium) is a Belgian film director, screenwriter and playwright. His complex and critically acclaimed films are especially noted for their respectful and sympathetic portrayal of people with mental and physical disabilities. In the 1980s, he became interested in filmmaking and produced a number of short films that aroused considerable critical interest. Van Dormael made his feature-length debut in 1991 with Toto le Héros (Toto the hero), a tale about a man who believes his life was "stolen" from him when he was switched at birth, told in a complex mosaic of flashbacks and dream sequences, sometimes with almost a stream of consciousness effect. Toto le Héros gained wide critical acclaim, winning both the César Award for best foreign film and the Camera d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, making Van Dormael something of an overnight celebrity. His brother Pierre Van Dormael was a jazz guitarist and composer, and had scored his feature films. Van Dormael's films, while few, have strong common themes between them. They make distinctive use of naive voiceover and examine the world from an innocent perspective (the young Thomas in Toto, the mentally LESS