 "Carnival in Flanders" / "La Kermesse héroïque" was made by Jacques Feyder immediately after his dark psychological drama "Pension Mimosas", and he said that he wanted to relax by making a farce, far removed from the present day.He turned to a short story written at his suggestion ten years earlier by Charles Spaak, set in 17th century Flanders when it was under Spanish occupation.For the visual style of the film, Feyder wanted to pay tribute to the old masters of his native country — Brueghel, Frans Hals, Pieter de Hoogh — and an elaborate creation of a Flemish town was undertaken (in suburban Paris) by the designer Lazare Meerson.