Filmmakers Face Mafia Threats During ’Rebel’ Shoot in Molenbeek

The filming of the film "Rebel", released in 2022 and directed by Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, did not go smoothly in Molenbeek. "We had to pay for our security there. We had barely started filming and they were already there with Molotov cocktails. The police could do nothing. We were filming in Molenbeek with a lot of equipment, many trucks and a lot of people," says Bert Hamelinck, CEO of the production company Caviar, on the VRT program "De afspraak".

According to him, the police told them that they would not be able to protect them. "People whose identity we really don’t know much about suddenly showed up with payment proposals. They threatened us with Molotov cocktails and incendiary bombs. We had a choice: pay or stop filming. [...] So we were allowed to stay and calm reigned for the rest of the filming," Hamelinck continued. As a result, the film’s security budget almost tripled from 30,000 euros to more than 80,000 euros.

When presenter Bart Schols asked Hamelinck if those who disrupted their filming were members of the Molenbeek mafia, he answered in the affirmative. "And we’re talking about a film by Adil and Bilall, with many actors in the cast who come from Molenbeek and know the region well," he points out, deploring "a very complicated filming period". And he concludes: "We worked there for two to three weeks and it wasn’t easy".

Joris Van Cauter, a lawyer specializing in criminal cases, who was present on the set, expressed his outrage: "That in Brussels, you have to pay a kind of mafia to be able to work safely, is unimaginable... It is the absolute failure of the rule of law. It is because the judicial system does not work".