All articles by Robbert Blokland
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Dunya & Desie is selected as Oscar entry from The Netherlands
Dunya & Desie, directed by Dana Nechushtan, has been selected as this year's Dutch entry for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar.Dunya & Desie tells about Dutch motormouth Desie and her best friend from a Moroccan-Dutch family, Dunya. The two inseparable friends are forced to make some important choices during ...
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Hauer joins van Houten in cast of Smoke And Ochre
Rutger Hauer and German actor Sebastian Koch have joined the cast of biopic Smoke And Ochre, to be directed by Dutch filmmaker Paula van der Oest. Dutch actress Carice van Houten plays the lead role of revolutionary South African writer Ingrid Jonker. Hauer will play her father while Koch will ...
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Fortissimo and Circe Films team up for art titles
Dutch based film company Fortissimo and Amsterdam-based production outfit Circe Films are teaming up to producea series of European arthouse titles. They announced their new partnership in Rotterdam.The first co-produced feature will be Face, the next project of Tsai Ming-Liang, initiatied by French JBA Productions.Fortissimo has taken salesrights to previous ...
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Dutch box office stabilizes in 2007 with local market share increasing
With over 22.1m tickets sold, the Dutch film industry stabilised its number of visitors with a strong 2007. Total gross of all theatres nationwide was $228.5m (Euros 153.8m).That's holding mostly steady from 22.5m tickets and Euros 154.5m in 2006. (It should be noted that 2006 was calculated at 53 release ...
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Dutch producers IDTV Film and Motel Films join forces
Dutch film- and television production companies Motel Films & IDTV Film have joined forces. From January 1st, two parties continued together under the name of IDTV Film.IDTV will also house its drama activities in IDTV Film. Motel Films chairmen Jeroen Beker and Frans van Gestel had concluded that in order ...
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Carice van Houten joins Body of Lies and Repossession Mambo
Black Book star Carice van Houten has signed up for two new projects: Ridley Scott's Body of Lies and Repossession Mambo.In the Ridley Scott directed Body of Lies, the Dutch actress co-stars next to Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe. Her production days are scheduled this week in Morocco. Right after ...
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Verhoeven plans $27m adaptation of Dexter's The Paperboy
Paul Verhoeven will direct the big-screen adaptation of Pete Dexter's novel The Paperboy, which former cinematographer Jan de Bont will produce. The Dutch collaborators will reunite for this $27m (Euros 20m) drama about three people being influenced by the execution of a presumed killer. Shooting is scheduled in a couple ...
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Dutch 2007 box office up 8.3% in first half of 2007
Recovery of Dutch box office continues after the satisfying 2006 numbers. Total gross increased with 8.3% to $96.5m (Euros 70.7m) in this year's first six months, compared to $89.1m (Euros 65.3m) in 2006. Dutch admissions climbed with 6.6% to 10.4m sold tickets in the first six months. In 2006, only ...
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Dutch actress Carice Van Houten to co-star in Valkyrie
Black Book star Carice Van Houten has been cast in Bryan Singer's wartime thriller Valkyrie. The Dutch actress co-stars as the wife of Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg, played by Tom Cruise. The cast reportedly also includes Kenneth Branagh, Armin Mueller-Stahl and Daniel Bruehl. Based on actual events, Valkyrie tells ...
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New Dutch scheme to offer $17m annually in matching funds
New Dutch regulations for film investment offer matching funds for films with two-thirds funding in place.Producers with 65% of their financing in place will be able to apply for the other 35% of their film's budget under the new incentive. To access the cash, 25% of total financing must be ...
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New Holland Pictures and IdtV team for Separation City
Australian production company New Holland Pictures and Netherlands-based IdtV Film are joining forces to co-produce the $4.2m (NZ $5.6m) romantic comedy Separation City.New Zealand's Paul Middleditch (Terra Nova) will direct. The story, written by New Zealand writer Tom Scott, is about a New Zealand woman about to find out her ...
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Thijs Romer to co-star in Tucci's Van Gogh remake
Young Dutch actor Thijs Romer will co-star in the forthcoming remake of Theo van Gogh's Blind Date, to be directed by Stanley Tucci. Shooting starts in two weeks in Belgium. It will be Romer's international film debut. He co-stars as a waiter, who is watching a married couple who are ...
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Black Book's Carice Van Houten to play South African writer
Dutch actress Carice van Houten will play the lead role in the biopic Smoke and Ochre about revolutionary South-African writer Ingrid Jonker. Dutch company Riba Film is developing the project, which will shoot in 2008.Dutch director Paula van der Oest is directing the project, which will be her first English-language ...
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Black Book star Carice van Houten moves on to Dorothy Mills
Dutch actress Carice van Houten is playing the lead role in a new psychological thriller by Agnes Merlet, with a working title of Dorothy Mills. The French-Irish coproduction will be Merlet's first feature since her 1997 award-winning biography Artemisia. The film will shoot in Ireland this summer. Van Houten is ...
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Dutch-German filmmaker Laurens Straub dies aged 62
Acclaimed Dutch-German writer and producer Laurens Straub died April 19 of cancer in Berlin. He was 62.Straub was born in the Netherlands in 1944 and moved to Germany in 1963, where he enrolled in the actor's school in Munich. After a couple of film roles, he focussed on writing and ...
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Oscar winning Dutch film-maker Fons Rademakers dies aged 86
Dutch director Fons Rademakers died last Thursday at the age of 86. He received an Academy Award in 1987 for his wartime thriller The Assault. Rademakers died in a hospital in Geneva from lung emphysema complications. During his career, he directed 11 features, mostly based on Dutch novels. His most ...
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Dutch box office recovers with 9% rise in admissions
The Dutch box-office business has recovered in 2006 after a devastating 2005 with an increase 9% in admissions and an increase of 14% in box-office takings. Total box-office gross revenues amounted to $200.0m (Euros 154.5 m), compared to $176.2m (Euros 135.5m) in 2005. The total admissions climbed from 20.6m to ...
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Rotterdam to open with Sapir's La Antena
The 36th International Film Festival Rotterdam opens on January 24th with the world premiere of Argentine feature The Aerial (La Antena) by director Esteban Sapir. Festival director Sandra den Hamer calls the black-and-white feature 'one of the most original productions of the year. It is a cinematic statement again the ...
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Rutger Hauer to lead Rotterdam masterclass
The Rutger Hauer FilmfactoryRotterdam Foundation will an eight-day masterclass ledby Rutger Hauer.The Masterclass will be heldfrom Jan 24-Feb 1, 2007, to coincide with next year's edition of the International FilmFestival Rotterdam. During the masterclass, seven short films will be made andpremiered.During this intensiveeight-day masterclass, actor and film-maker Rutger Hauer will ...
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Warner Bros. picks up New Line titles for Benelux
Warners Bros. Benelux hasacquired all distributions rights of four new titles of New Line Cinema. It isthe first time both parties have closed a distribution deal for the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. The three titles will be distributed during 2007.The deal covers Chris Weitz'sThe Golden Compass, starring NicoleKidman, Daniel Craig ...