ASTRID
-Marilyn
LOG LINE: Astrid is an epic film that spans the lives of Queen Astrid of Belgium, King Leopold III and his second wife Lillian Baels on through to world war II with their imprisonment in Nazi Germany.
SYNOPSIS: A unique couple Astrid and Leopold are the hope of Belgium after resurrecting Belgian African colonies cleaning the mess in the aftermath of cruelty there by the previous king Leopold II who committed horrible atrocities against mankind labouring in the rubber tree crops.
Astrid poses in the kitchen with a mixing bowl and batter supporting the life of the commoner by this easy going couple in Belgium in a new Vogue of leadership. They have three children Beaudoin the eldest Josephine and Albert the youngest and live in a large chateau they call Astrid’s Castle. Elisbeth the intense mother of Leopold and Albert have taken over and kept the Laeken Palace of royalty in Brussels after his coronation ousting the royal couple to more humble digs.
Great humor both Leopold and Astrid share making a light hearted style permeate the entire film through wondrous success and strife. Leopold has a love of the Belgian Congo which was largely abandoned by Elisbeth’s disgust in insects and too much heat. Astrid and Leopold make the long journey by plane boat and railway to the Belgian Congo to resurrect the people, creating white clothing for them to shielded them from the sun and setting up schools workshops and other facilities for the locals and tending to their export crops and mines. Beauty of the place and wildness gives the royal couple a break from the formalities of their duty and a perspective on the value of all people in all places under their care in the beauteous nature of the Congo.
Shortly after their return Astrid dies in a horrible car accident where the car skids out of control hitting a tree and rolling over. She dies and the children are left with a grieving father to tend to them with their nannies. He remarries Lillian Baels and she takes on the role of mother hood after he ousts Elisbeth and Albert from Laeken Palace reclaiming it as the proper royal residence. Leopold’s parents take his old address to live in.
World War II breaks out and Hitler imprisons the royal couple in the royal palace of Laeken at first after Leopold surrenders to Hitler’s army to save Belgian lives. As the war intensifies and the Germans interfere with the alliance supported government dispersal of ruler ship under house arrest to Belgium by the king Leopold and his family are taken to Hirchstein to a broken down Chateau in Germany to be imprisoned. After months of near starvation and battling gangrene in one of the children from a leg wound they are moved to Strobl for the final months of imprisonment where finally the Americans rescue them and set them free as the war ends.
Leopold is exiled from Belgium in a vote damning him for the surrender of Belgium to Germany by just over half the people’s vote. He and the family live in Switzerland for seven years till the coronation of Beaudoin as king finally in a huge celebration outside Laeken Palace.
Leopold and Lillian travel back to the Congo later to classify species of botanical plants never previously classified as his hobby turns scholarly in his retirement from government with his wife.




























