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THE BELGIAN DEER Trailer © 2025
THE BELGIAN DEER
Mini-Series © 2025
LOGLINE
A young woman released from prison accepts a job that involves delivering a sealed letter to Paris for a lot of money. Suddenly she finds herself hunted by the secret service and is forced to fight, together with her sister, against an all-powerful opponent from the world of politics and business.
GENRE
Drama / Thriller
It is the story of two very different sisters who find each other in a world that is increasingly falling apart. It is told in a straightforward and action-packed manner, from the very personal drama of the protagonists to the hideous face of cynical politics, which stops at nothing to protect economic interests. Yet this fast-paced and emotional thriller is also a story of hope that, if anything, only love and solidarity offer a chance of surviving against barbarism and darkness.
EXPOSITION
PREAMBLE
As an only child growing up poor with just her father, Chloe never knew her mother. When her father died, lonely and miserable, Chloe was doing time for drugs. (Scroll down to read more about the protagonists in MAIN CHARACTERS)
STORY
After an 18-month prison sentence for drug trafficking, CHLOE (28 / Belgian) works as a courier and takes on jobs that no one else wants. Sailing close to the wind, no questions asked, resorting to violence where necessary, and all that for big bucks.
It’s supposed to be an easy job for Chloe. All she needs to do is deliver an envelope and she’ll get paid handsomely for it. The envelope is unmarked; the recipient is communicated to her over the phone: The Israeli Embassy in Paris. The phone call is intercepted by two secret agents. The men cannot be identified.
Suddenly, Chloe becomes the hunted. Someone is out to kill her, someone who knows what’s inside the envelope. And he will stop at nothing because Chloe carries proof of a terrible political crime. Following a massacre in the Ardennes at night, Chloe flees to Paris.
Chloe senses that she is dealing with a powerful opponent. But she has to get this job done, whatever the cost – she needs the money. Because she has been diagnosed with a rare form of cancer whose only cure is a very costly transplant: the bone marrow from a blood relative. Shortly before his death, her dying father gave Chloe a hint that she had a sister in France. A sister she never knew she had. A glimmer of hope …
In Paris, Chloe opens the sealed envelope and pulls out an SD card. The card contains a video recorded with a hidden camera showing a German and a French weapons dealer engaged in talks with masked Hezbollah fighters. It’s about illegal weapons supplies and a massacre of civilians.
Hezbollah explicitly mentions the names of two high-ranking German and French politicians, who had sanctioned the arms deals. Both politicians hold high-ranking positions in their countries’ defence ministries and quite obviously have knowingly turned a blind eye to the executions of the Israelis. The ugly manifestations of cynical politics that stops at nothing to secure its economic interests.
Chloe realises that professional killers are after her. Passing the video on to the Israelis would trigger a diplomatic earthquake, especially since Germany is involved.
(Scroll down to see Author's personal note for POLITICAL BACKGROUND)
With the help of an old friend of her father’s, Chloe tracks her sister down in Paris: CATHERINE (23 / French), a successful young pianist. The sisters' initial speechlessness, knowing nothing about each other, gives way to a cautious approach. Something clicks between the two, and carefully, they tell each other their stories...
Chloe finds shelter with Catherine in her apartment. There the sisters are attacked by the killers who are hunting for the envelope. Chloe overpowers their attackers in a hard fight, and the sisters flee.
They have only one option: switch the roles of hunter and hunted. The envelope must reach its destination and Chloe must survive this assignment … with Catherine at her side. Because Catherine, like Chloe, is a fighter – but with a different choice of weapons …
Author's personal note for POLITICAL BACKGROUND
I had already ‘constructed’ this essential part of the story (Hezbollah with German and French arms dealers) in 2018, practically on the basis of research, after weeks of exploring the topic of ‘arms exports to crisis areas’ (see Black Book of the German Arms Trade, among others) with players such as Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Lebanon / Hezbollah. Added to this was the (little-publicised) news about the tunnel systems of the Lebanese Hezbollah, which lead directly into Israeli border areas inhabited by civilians.
At the time, based on my research, I considered my dramaturgical construct to be thoroughly justifiable, as in being realistic and conceivable.
The fact that my script, my imagination, has now been so tragically overtaken by reality is, on the one hand, terrible; but on the other hand, it also shows that the disaster was, to a certain extent, predictable.
Christian Henze . Director
MAIN CHARACTERS
CHLOE (28 / Belgian)
Chloe is a fighter. A tough alley cat that gives as good as she gets.
Having grown up on the streets in a tough, criminal environment, she knows how to use her fists just as hard as she does her black Beretta M1934, an old Italian handgun of her father's.
She is an intelligent control freak to whom life had handed enough raw deals not to let anyone mess with her again.
As an only child growing up poor and without a mother, she had always admired her father, a man who spent half his life in jail and is now dead. Chloe never knew her mother. Shortly before his death, her dying father gave Chloe a hint that she had a sister in France. When he died, lonely and miserable, Chloe was doing time for drugs.
The idea of a ‘happy family’ – something Chloe has never known in her less-than-idyllic world – and committed relationships scare her. Chloe has sex only sporadically, if at all, and no boyfriend. Her next mission is to beat cancer - but first, she must get through this job alive.
Sometimes she wishes she could ask her father for advice, hear his voice. »Little deer«, he used to call her ...
CATHERINE (23 / French / Chloe's biological sister)
Catherine is highly intelligent, has an IQ of 145, speaks several languages, including Arabic.
Growing up in the most privileged of circumstances in Paris with an indifferent mother and a rich and loving stepfather. A sheltered only child who has it all, materially. She never knew her biological father; he died before Catherine was born – or so she was told, but which she never quite believed.
A child prodigy, Catherine has been studying piano and now, she is on her way to becoming a star on the world’s greatest concert stages. A path she has fought so hard for.
Like Chloe, Catherine is a fighter – but with a different choice of weapons. Deep inside, the sisters are cut from the same cloth, though neither realises this at first.
When Chloe turns up in Paris Catherine’s world is rocked. But she senses that she – and only she – is somehow connected with this strange Belgian girl from a completely different world. She is caught up in a maelstrom that Catherine cannot – nor does she want to – escape ...
DEVELOPMENT STATUS
Scriptment 13 pages