Content Film has come on to sell worldwide rights excluding Holland, Belgium, the former Dutch Colonies, Luxembourg and Germany to Oscar winner Mike van Diem’s upcoming Dutch rom-com The Surprise.

Els Vandevorst is producing with Hans de Weers in co-production with Mike Downey and Sam Taylor, Nino Lombardo, Macdara Kellerher and Michael Eckert.

The Surprise centres on a man who is tired of life and has to extricate himself from a contract with a firm that assists in staged suicides after he meets a young woman.

“Mike van Diem is a huge talent with a distinct voice, and it’s wonderful to be working with him on such a unique and charming film,” said Content Film president Jamie Carmichael. “The Surprise is a beautiful and complex story that is at once romantic, melancholic and very funny.”

Van Diem won the best foreign language Oscar for Karakter in 1998.

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