TOON AERTS
In 2001, Toon Aerts (°1977) graduated with honours from the Sint Lukas film school in Brussels on presentation of the shortfilm "Dialing the Devil". His shortfilm, a gritty 70’s style roadmovie, won numerous national and international awards like the Leuven Kort Festival (BE), Het Grote Ongeduld (BE), Courtisane (BE), 3rd Pixie Awards (USA) and the Golden Sheaf Awards (CAN).
Toon then signed up with production company CZAR to direct commercials. He had a blitz start and quickly directed for the most creative agencies in Belgium, including Duval Guillaume Brussels, LG&F, etc ...
His work didn’t go unnoticed in the Netherlands, where he directed a campaign for the Amsterdam agency KesselsKramer for the Dutch mobile phone operator Ben. In 2002 Toon received The Young Directors Award for this commercial.
He has since shot commercials for EA Games, Lipton Ice Tea, KPN Digital TV, Ikea, The International Film Festival of Rotterdam, Planet Internet and many others. The Asics commercial he shot won a bronze and a silver award on the Cannes edition of 2005.
But Toon always continued doing other projects as well.
Music has always been his first love, that’s pretty clear. Not only did Toon direct numerous music videos for Belgian bands like Millionaire, El Guapo Stuntteam and Fence. He also photographed a lot of these bands. For instance, he shot the cover of the new Shovels album and did the promotional photography for Radio Infinity, Vandal X and El Guapo Stuntteam.
He also contributed photos to several edtions of VICE Magazine and was included in Front Magazine issue nr. 9. Together with friend and longtime collaborator Nicolas Karakatsanis, Toon did his first exhibition “Industries For The Blind” at the Alice Gallery in Brussels.
More recently, Toon took part in the ""Noise Of Quasar"" project, led by Belgian artist Philip Metten. Working closely together with Metten himself, Toon created a shortfilm that was shown at the S.M.A.K. in Ghent, the showroom M.A.M.A. in Rotterdam and the Pop-Eye festival in Hasselt.
The recently shot music video "Back From The Grave" won the prize for best music video at the last edition of the Belgian Shortfilmfestival "Leuven Kort" and was shown at the bi-monthly BUG Music Video Festival in London and was selected for the Mirrorball section of the Edinburgh International Film Festival.
Toon has received a fund from the VAF to shoot his shortfilm “Perfect Drug”. The movie will be shot winter 2010 and will feature Misha Downey and Kosi Hidama, two actors Toon already collaborated with on such crazy projects as the "Noise Of Quasar" art project, the "Sink That Ship" music video and the hilarious "Asics" viral. Perfect Drug will be produced by CCCP and is certain to become a real headturner, we'll keep you posted.
Toon’s work, being it his films or his photos, are characterised by a strong visual style. His work clearly refers to elements of popular culture like horror movies, sci-fi, 70’s exploitation or television series. Toon likes images that are loud, colorful, larger than life and over-the-top. Toon tries to intigue the viewer, to capture his attention and more importantly show the viewer the way he likes to look at reality ...