Netherlands Film Production Incentive invests € 6.9 million in 22 new productions and 4 high-end TV-series

These include 12 feature films, 9 documentaries, 3 drama series and 1 documentary series including 13 international co-productions. These contributions will generate more than € 24.6 million in production expenses in the Netherlands across the entire spectrum of Dutch film professionals and film companies.

All projects backed by the Netherlands Film Production Incentive in the second round of 2023 are:

The Age of Magic (feature film)

Director: Peter Krüger
Script: Peter Krüger
Producer: Savage Film (BE)
Co-producers: The Film Kitchen (NL), Cineworx Filmproduktion (CH), Intifilms (BE)
Logline: Together with a film crew of five, a black writer and his girlfriend arrive at an old mysterious town on the shores of a luminous lake. Over the course of three days, they are changed by the town's magic. Hovering between dream and reality, they try to refind the Arcadian dream.
Granted support: € 167,694

Armand (feature film)

Director: Halfdan Tøndel (NO)
Script: Halfdan Tøndel (NO)
Producer: Eye Eye Pictures (NO)
Co-producers: Keplerfilm (NL), One Two Films (DE), Prolaps Produktion (SE)
Logline: One fateful afternoon in an empty school building, a single mother and well-known actress is facing the news that her six-year-old son has allegedly harassed his best friend. Was it innocent child’s play, or more serious? The parents find themselves in a growing struggle to be believed, the past is brought in, and it appears impossible to quite know who is telling the truth.
Granted support: € 94,582

Buenas Chicas (feature film)

Director: Pim van Hoeve
Script: Karen van den Ende, Jacqueline Rogers
Producer: 2CFILM (NL)
Logline: A determined lawyer travels to the rugged, primitive Spanish countryside with her two best friends to convince a dour winegrower to sell his vineyard. Thrown back in time, the three urban women need each other more than ever and no adversity is equal to true friendship..
Granted support: € 301,000

Three Days of Fish (feature film)

Directors: Peter Hoogendoorn
Script: Peter Hoogendoorn
Producer: Circe Films
Co-producers: A Private View (BE), Kaap Holland Film (NL)
Logline: In a hilarious, real-time road movie past hospital clinic, dentist, wool shop and Uncle Piet's birthday, we follow a father and a son closely during their annual reunion in Rotterdam.
Granted support: € 481,180

The Favourite (feature film)

Director: Karin Junger
Script: Karin Junger
Producer: The Film Kitchen (NL)
Co-producers: Polar Bear (BE), Krater Films (BE)
Logline: Daan (12) gets into a relationship with his football coach Ries (35). The need to keep it a secret isolates him. When it comes out, his struggle begins against his own shame and the awkward, sometimes callous reactions from the people around him.
Granted support: € 403,437

Front Row (documentary)

Director: Miriam Guttmann
Script: Miriam Guttmann
Producer: Scenery (h.o.d.n. Totem Media) (NL)
Logline: Leading ballet dancer Oleksii goes into exile to escape the war in which soldier Oleksandr loses both his legs. They form an unlikely friendship that inspires Oleksandr to learn how to dance on prosthetic legs. Together with Oleksii and the other dancers of the United Ukrainian Ballet Company they rehease for a performance that will diminish the space between the front row and the front line.
Granted support: € 181,785

The Goddess of Flaminio (documentary)

Director: Kasper Verkaik
Script: Kasper Verkaik
Producer: Eric Velthuis (NL)
Co-poducer: Les Films d'Ici (FR)
Logline: Flaminio Bertoni wanted nothing more than to create art, but his masterpiece became a car: the Citroën DS. Voted the most beautiful car of all time, Flaminio created a style icon of world renown, but remained anonymous himself. The DS, - the Goddess - comes to life, travels through the life of her mythical creator and his children, and wants to know who he was and what it cost him to create her.
Granted support: € 133,957

How Long? (documentary)

Director: Niels van Koevorden
Script: Niels van Koevorden
Producer: Een van de Jongens (NL)
Logline: Five people hear they are going to die. They all have an incurable form of cancer and can only choose from life-prolonging treatments. Their story starts in the oncologist's office and ends on their deathbed. How do you say goodbye to life while being treated to prolong your life? Hope and despair alternate in the decisions they have to make between the length or the quality of their life.
Granted support: € 120,000

The Idyll (feature film)

Director: Aaron Rookus
Script: Aaron Rookus
Producer: Studio Ruba (NL)
Co-producers: Polar Bear (BE), Allfilm (EE)
Logline: Victor (42) finally comes out of the closet, but realizes he is now too old for the gay dating market. His sister, opera diva Annika (40), imagines how her life could have been after a terminal diagnosis. Meanwhile grandmother Joke (90) is really bad at killing herself, while Timo (10) is ticking off the bucket list Things You Need To Do When You Have Only One Week To Live.
Granted support: € 430,014

Indo-Dutch in the Netherlands (documentary)

Director: Hetty Naaijkens-Retel Helmrich
Script: Hetty Naaijkens-Retel Helmrich
Producer: Scarabee Culturele Projecten (NL)
Logline: This film aims to sketch the post-war history of the Indo Dutch, focusing on the Indo Dutch heritage that has become commonplace in Dutch society and culture over time.
Granted support: € 90,919

The Insatiables (documentary)

Director: Marc Schmidt
Script: Marc Schmidt
Producer: DOXY (NL)
Logline: A personal investigation into the feeling of emptiness. The starting point is the insatiability of my father and myself. While my father is working in his studio on his 'black etching', I try in vain to make contact with him. Additional portraits of three other insatiables depict differing strategies to achieve it sense of emptiness.
Granted support: € 101,007

Juul (feature film)

Director: Tom van Gestel
Script: Hugo An de Guyter
Producer: Fabrique Fantastique (BE)
Co-producers: Keplerfilm (NL), Mideu Films (DE), Mark 13 (DE), Mr. Miyagi (ES), Will Production (FR)
Logline: 17-year old circus girl Juul is declared brain-dead after a failed performance. Her father Bor performs her as a living puppet. In Juul, who is still conscious, inner rage and despair grow. In protest against the humiliations, she allows herself to slowly turn into porcelain.
Granted support: € 139,984

Lost City (documentary)

Director: Willy Lindwer
Script: Willy Lindwer
Producer: Staccato Films Netherlands (NL)
Co-producer: No Fear (NL)
Logline: Eighty thousand Amsterdam Jews were deported in less than 14 months during world war II. No one will have missed this major operation. There was no resistance, fear and indifference reigned. The tram played a tragic and hitherto unknown role in this extensive deportation process. The city lost its Jewish soul.
Granted support: € 73,024

Milano (feature film)

Director: Christina Vandekerckhove (BE)
Script: Christina Vandekerckhove (BE)
Producer: Lunanime (BE)
Co-producers: Bastide Films (NL), Dragon Films (BE)
Logline: Milano tells the story of an 11 year old boy who expresses himself in sign language. He lives with his father, who himself was raised in an institution and therefore doesn't know how to take care of a child. By trial and error they try to make the best of it. Then Milano's mother returns to the scene and nothing is the same.
Granted support: € 75,454

The New World (documentary)

Director: Petra Lataster-Czisch
Script: Petra Lataster-Czisch
Producer: L&F Producties (NL)
Logline: While their husbands, fathers and brothers have stayed behind in Ukraine Ukrainian women and their children are trying to build a new existence in Holland. Despite of home sickness, fear for their loved ones en the sorrow because of everything they had to leave behind the women are trying to help one another.
Granted support: € 122,397

Paradise (feature film)

Director: Bobbie Koek
Script: Bobbie Koek
Producer: DOXY (NL)
Coproducer: A Private View (BE)
Logline: On the day his girlfriend leaves their baby with him, Noah (16) is thrown into adulthood in one fell swoop. Full in denial, he gets on his motorbike to bring their son back to her. But driving away to get loose gradually becomes a journey to connection.
Granted support: € 515,000

Skiff (feature film)

Director: Cecilia Verheyden (BE)
Script: Cecilia Verheyden (BE)
Producer: Mirage Films (BE)
Coproducers: Lemming Film (NL), Les Films du Fleuve (BE), Prime Time (BE)
Logline: Fifteen-year-old Malou is still struggling with herself; while her mother is absent and her rowing teammates bully her, the one person she can rely on is her brother Max. When Malou develops feelings for Max' girlfriend Nouria, her life is dragged into an unstoppable current. Malou has to face her true self, may it be at the expense of her brother.
Granted support: € 103,950

Superpowers For Your Mind (feature film)

Director: Dylan Haegens
Script: Marit Brugman, Wouter de Jong
Producer: NewBe (NL)
Logline: When a crippled and very insecure boy discovers that his superhero idol has become a healer, he and his strikingly eccentric grandmother embark on an adventure to get a healing session at the Comic Con.
Granted support: € 475,081

Värn (feature film)

Director: John Skoog
Script: John Skoog, Kettil Kasang
Producer: Platfform Produktion (SE)
Co-producers: Lemming Film (NL), Paloma Productions (DK), Bufo Film (FI), Madants (PL)
Logline: On a hot, bright, and dry summer, sometime in the second half of the 20th century, farmhand and loner Karl-Göran Persson begins to fortify his house on the flat plains of southern Sweden. Deeply affected by the state’s advice for war preparations in the pamphlet “If war comes”, he wants to protect him and his neighbours when the enemy attacks or the disaster comes.
Granted support: € 85,643

When I Close My Eyes (documentary)

Director: Pieter van Huystee
Script: Pieter van Huystee
Producer: Tomtit Film (NL)
Co-producer: Pieter van Huystee Film (NL)
Logline: What wounds and traumas still affect the women and children who experienced the Japanese Camps in the Dutch East Indies, and how have they dealt with this in their lives?
Granted support: € 97,074

Wholebread 2 (feature film)

Director: Jamel Aattache
Script: Donny Singh
Producer: Talent United (NL)
Co-producer: Brabant Films (NL)
Logline: Just as the Wholebread have nestled themselves among their new friends, the Hollandwijk is threatened with demolition. To make matters worse, Erik's father comes to live with them and ensures that everything the family has built is thrown completely out of balance.
Granted support: € 305,000

A Woman Like Monique (documentary)

Director: Claire Pijman
Script: Lies Janssen, Chris Westendorp
Producer: Moondocs (NL)
Logline: Based on the versatile oeuvre of actress Monique van de Ven, the film examines the image of women in Dutch film over the past half century. While Monique pays tribute to her profession, she looks back on her roles and gives us a look at the demons female actresses have to fight in their careers.
Granted support: € 121.228

High-end TV-series

Don’t Fall, Dance (dramaseries)

Directors: Simone van Dusseldorp
Script: Eva Aben
Producer: Big Blue Productions (NL)
Logline: Emma's teenage years are brutally taken away by the enemy. She needs 5 years to beat it. She decides that she will never involuntarily hand over control to anyone again. The rush of life takes over her and a life full of unexpected choices and twists is the result to finally embrace her arch enemy.
Granted support: € 677,697

Moresnet (dramaseries)

Directors: Frank van Passel, Jonas van Geel
Script: Jef Hoogmartens
Producer: Pupkin Film (NL)
Co-producers: Caviar Antwerp (BE), Flare Film (DE), Lompvis (BE)
Logline: Spurred on by a prophetic kill list, a man has to track down his future killer in order to save his own life and that of his loved ones.
Granted support: € 575,345

Patty (dramaseries)

Director: Will Koopman
Script: Will Koopman
Producer: Blooming Film & TV (NL)
Logline: PATTY! is about the rise, fall and even deeper fall, of Holland’s most famous showbiz diva. A series full of drama, humor and music with the message that there is always a second (or third) chance, as long as you stay close to yourself. And don’t care about the rest.
Granted support: € € 845,809

Sobibor – Escape From History (documentary series)

Director: Piet de Blaauw, Jan Pieter Tuinstra
Script: Piet de Blaauw
Producer: Submarine Productions Logline: How does anyone survive a horrific history beyond imagination? This is the unique story of a group of Jewish prisoners who manage to escape from inside the living hell of Nazi concentration camp Sobibor. After the war they have to rebuild their lives. Some seek redemption, others retribution. To this day their children struggle in different ways with the trauma of their parents.
Granted support: € 196,182

Upcoming application round 2023

The next application round for Netherlands Film Production Incentive is 21 August 2023. The Netherlands Film Production Incentive offers a financial contribution in the form of a cash rebate on the qualifying production costs that are demonstrably spent in the Netherlands.

Image: Three Days of Fish by Mark de Blok