There are many good stories in the legendary Antwerp dance temple Zillion.Film director Robin Pront opted for the ‘rise and fall’ of founder FrankVerstraeten. Why did the nineties revolve around ‘the little one from Meise’?
Even those who have never been to the Zillion or looked down on the johnnyculture of the 1990s will remember the images of the homejacking of Zillionfounder Frank Verstraeten and his then girlfriend and Miss Belgium BrigittaCallens. The photos from the ‘boekskes’ in which the glamor couple posedvisibly battered went around everywhere. It is logical that ‘Zillion’, RobinPront’s film about the mega discotheque and its flamboyant founder, builds upto that moment.
The director from Antwerp was too young to enter the dance hall. But he knew,like many, the striking stories of the wild (sex) nights, partying BVs, drugbusts and problems with the judiciary, local residents and the police. He alsoknew of the reputation of the ‘little one of Meise’: a selfish pusher whoregularly made fun of visitors or even police officers.
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Frank has always remained the tough businessman from his Zillion days. “
An acquaintance of Verstraeten
Verstraeten contributed to the film, which always increases the risk of ahagiography. But he sure doesn’t look good. ‘Zillion’ paints a Jordan Belfort-esque portrait of the Belgian ‘king of nightlife’: a tragic narcissist with aninferiority complex. The analogy with ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’, about theAmerican stock market fraud who led a life full of dirty money, drugs and sex,is obvious: Martin Scorsese is one of Pront’s great film heroes. The result isa dynamic film in which the spectacle rarely gets boring or feels over thetop, because that’s just how it was in Verstraeten’s life.
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It starts in the film with the young Frank who, as an only and somewhatwithdrawn child, taught himself to program and around the age of 19 ran acomputer parts company next to his single mother’s ice cream parlor. He alsoevaded taxes. The Zillion came after Verstraeten was thrown out of the Carréin Willebroek. In revenge, he bought – according to the film, but perhaps alsoin real life with money from a VAT carousel – a large building in the South ofAntwerp and converted it into one of the most notorious discotheques inEurope. This was done with a permit for a ‘multi-purpose space with sportshalls’.
Aquarium dancers
Soaring stages, dancers in an aquarium, fireworks fountains, lasers,merchandising. In our experience, the dance palace was the Tomorrowland of itstime. In the five years that the Zillion was open, between 1997 and 2002, itwas never quiet. There were licensing issues. Neighbors complained aboutnoise. North Africans were harshly shown the door. The nightclub has beenlinked to criminal activities such as drug and arms trafficking, moneylaundering and even public defamation. The latter referred to the so-calledZundays, erotic Sunday evenings that culminated in orgies with high-rankingpeople.
The film ends with the closing of the club and the conviction of Verstraetenfor some of the charges against him. Unlike Belfort, who capitalized on hislife story in the lecture circuit after his prison sentence, he withdrew frompublic life. Verstraeten, now 53, has had a company producing LED screens inBuggenhout for 15 years. Pixelscreen enjoys a solid reputation in the Flemishevent sector and the annual accounts also show good financial health. “He’sbeen at it too long not to be okay,” says one customer.
In the film, Verstraeten, cleverly played by Jonas Vermeulen, screams that heis not driven by money. ‘That’s right. Creativity is his main driver: makingthings possible through technology,” says someone else who knows him fromPixelscreen. ‘He has always been that tough businessman. Whom he no longerneeds, he drops like a brick. That’s okay, isn’t it. That’s just how business