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Holland Film Meeting 2022 casts a wider net this year

Twenty-four highly promising new projects from some of Dutch and international cinema’s most original and articulate voices are selected for the 2022 Holland Film Meeting, where they will be further developed before their presentation to leading Dutch and international financiers, sales, distribution and festival professionals. The projects are selected within the BoostNL, Stories & Beyond and New Dutch categories. The Holland Film Meeting (HFM) is one of Europe’s must-attend hybrid development and exchange events, and is considered an important bridge between the Dutch and international film industries.

In August and September, the HFM Lab offers participants pitch and market training ahead of the full-blown presentation of their projects during the HFM Market in Utrecht and online 25-27 September 2022.

The three-day HFM Market is for industry professionals and will consist of pre-recorded pitch presentations of the projects in selection, one-to-one meetings (online and on-site) and the final HFM Awards for all the projects, with prizes both in cash and in-kind. HFM’s flexible online format allows the spotlight to be trained on countries that would otherwise not so easily be included in the programme, thereby offering the maximum opportunity to a wider range of screenwriters/filmmakers/producers at an early stage of the filmmaking process to explore the international potential of their future films by obtaining feedback and advice from Dutch and international key creative and industry professionals.

Of the 24 projects presented within the BoostNL, Stories & Beyond and New Dutch categories, 14 are helmed by female directors, 14 projects are by BIPOC filmmakers and three are stories that reflect LGBTQ+ experiences and issues. Fourteen of the projects are drama or comedy fiction features, seven are creative docs, two are within the realm of digital culture and one feature animation completes the selection.

BoostNL Selection

BoostNL, the tailor-made professional programme run in collaboration with fellow festival IFFR (and its business arm IFFR Pro), presents 8 projects from The Netherlands, Nepal, Brazil, Senegal/South Africa and Chile. Set to embark on its eighth edition, the 5-month BoostNL programme places particular emphasis on script and story development and helps develop festival, sales and marketing strategies.

This year, Student Oscar-winning producers Eva Verweij and Loes Komen (Room for Film) present Nicole Jachmann’s rites-of-passage project The Part of the Day When You’re Not Here, while fellow Dutch production house Family Affair Films presents another coming-of-age drama, On the Edge of the Lake* by Hyo Soon Kaag. Other Dutch projects are Volya Films’ black comedy Grushka, directed by Marta Partalore and Wiebe van den Ende’s intriguingly titled dark dramedy Cameron and How to Never Outshine a Bride*.

From Nepal comes Abinash Bikram Shah’s LGBTQ+themed Elephants in the Fog*, produced by Underground Talkies Nepal, while Chilean director Carolina Moscoso offers up her archive-based documentary I´ll Never Be a Cop. Other projects are Pènc 13* directed Selly Raby Kane and produced by Lunek Productions (Senegal) and by Big World Cinema (South Africa) and the Brazilian slavery-themed coming-of-age period drama project Quatro Meninas directed by Karen Suzane and Clara Ferrer.

Stories & Beyond Selection

In 2022, the Stories & Beyond emphasis is on the vibrant industries within the former Dutch colonies of Surinam, Curaçao, Saint Martin and Aruba. This year we have selected 9 projects for Stories & Beyond.

From Surinam come three new works; Rafael Chan Pin Jin’s comedy PBM Enterprise, written by Hilkia Lobman and produced by Aegina Brahim; the historical drama Het Excuus, directed by Suleigha Winkel and co-written with Bryan Blinker, and producer/screenwriter/director Ivan P. Tai-Apin’s Gouverneur de Goijer, which is another historical drama.

Director/producer Peter Sagnia’s punningly titled thriller Sinned Martin (written by Tony Hendricks and Gilian Royes) hails from the island of Saint Martin while from Curaçao come two projects; Tittel Del Mar's long documentary FRIWIL, produced by Caribbean Filmcom, and the historical drama Ami ta Kòrsou which is penned by Elizabeth Francisco (no director yet attached).

From Aruba comes screenwriter/director/producer Raydrick Feliciana’s creative doc La isla inútil. The Dutch historical drama/biopic project Anton de Kom - I Shall be Heard*, by Rotterdam-based Edson da Conceicao and concerning the eponymous Surinam freedom fighter, from writers Philip Delmaar and Raoul de Jong, is produced by IJswater Films and and Tulsa Studios.

Eché Janga (director of 2020 opening film Buladó**) will partake with producers Derk-Jan Warrink en Koji Nelissen of Keplerfilm, with his new project Killabees*.

New Dutch Selection

The New Dutch selection forefronts majority Dutch projects in advanced pre-production, ones that are currently in production and others in post-production. This year 7 projects are earmarked for bespoke creative and business mentorship as they eye up their immersion into the marketplace and their eventual roll-out to (inter)national audiences. The New Dutch section also includes digital storytelling projects.

The LGBTQ+-themed interactive VR, film, artwork and game Gay Simulator* is produced by Corine Meijers of Studio Biarritz and directed by Iris van der Meule, while Yvonne van Ulden's and Gavin-Viano Fabri’s feature-length multiscreen immersive film experience A Hellfighter’s Odyssey (which includes additional live elements), is presented by Michiel Snijders of il Luster.

The New Dutch section also includes four creative documentaries; screenwriter/director/producer Rebecca Roos' The Best Time; Tessa Leuwsha’s historical, archive-based Moeder Suriname*, produced by Dutch doc powerhouse Pieter van Huystee Film; the musical protest film Ni una más by Julia Louisa Hollander; and screenwriter/director Nathan Saucier’s Walking Fish, currently in production. Last and certainly not least is screenwriter/director/producer Alle Jong’s part-biographical feature animation Sketchy Fables.

*Film is supported by the Netherlands Film Fund
**Film is supported by the Netherlands Production Incentive and Film Fund

Source: SEE NL
Image: NFF professionals