A Team Productions

Past movie productions include action-packed submarine adventure Torpedo, horror comedy Yummy, and the drama Baghdad Messi, set and shot entirely in Iraq. Series successes include Kids on the Block.

A Team also has a long-standing partnership with directing duo Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, stretching back to their first feature film Image and its successors Black and Gangsta. Now Hollywood regulars thanks to the success of Bad Boys for Life and Bad Boys: Ride or Die, the pair regularly return to work in Flanders.

Their next production with A Team will be the sequel Gangstas, which picks up the story of four friends caught up in the Antwerp drug trade and its international connections in Amsterdam and Dubai. The movie is co-produced with 10.80 Films in Brussels and Fiction Valley in the Netherlands, which is also part of the Fremantle group.

The co-production was launched with substantial guarantees from theatrical distributors in Belgium, the Netherlands and France. “Then, after the theatrical release, Amazon has an exclusive window, but there is still space for linear broadcasters to show the movie,” says Verthé.

Further financial support for the co-production came from the Flanders Audiovisual Fund (VAF) and Screen Flanders, alongside incentive financing in the Netherlands, plus additional funding through the Belgian tax shelter.

The most recent series from A Team Productions is the sci-fi drama Alter Ego, an unconventional love story set in a world where death stalks the living, granting release to those whose final hour has arrived. This ambitious concept demanded a bigger than usual budget.

“We had extensive studio builds for the production, so we needed to attract money from abroad,” says Verthé. “The story gave us that opportunity, and we were able to find money from the Dutch and French markets, and the respective incentives.” The series was co-produced with Column Film in the Netherlands, with Streamz and Videoland picking up local broadcast rights.

Looking ahead, A Team will be working again with Adil and Bilall on the third and final Gangsta film, which will shoot mainly in Flanders (Antwerp) but also in Dubai, and on the documentary Gangstas Real Life, which explores the facts behind the fiction. It is also prepping the feature film Le Paradis, which is billed as an action-packed comedy with social relevance.

Meanwhile it is a minority co-producer in the Netflix series Amsterdam Empire, a crime drama exploring the glamour and grime at the heart of the Amsterdam cannabis scene. “We are only responsible for the post-production, but we are really proud to be part of it,” says Verthé.

Verthé sees quality entertainment for large audiences as the beating heart of A Team. “Being commercial is not a dirty word for us, but we also like to be edgy and a bit daring,” he says. "If you have an entertaining idea that is a bit larger than life, with creatives who dare to think big, then maybe call the A Team."