Ask Dutch producer Iris Otten what drives her as a producer and she talks about growing up on the Caribbean island of Curaçao where he watched 1980s movie Dirty Dancing on repeat on the family video recorder. She reckons she has seen the final scene at least 150 times.

“When I was a child, I enjoyed the storyline about love and dancing, but when I became older, I was intrigued because it was also about abortion and class differences,” she says now.

For Otten, the Dirty Dancing principle still applies - the films she is producing through her production outfit Juliet are intended both to have an emotional kick and social relevance and to appeal to young and old alike. “We as producers have a huge responsibility. It is so important we bring stories to our audiences which help them see how they can communicate with each other.”

Otten attended Dutch film showcase NLWave 25 this week to present the first industry screening of Juliet’s latest feature, A Family, directed by Mees Peijnenburg. A partly autobiographical tale about teenage siblings whose carefree lives are turned upside down after their parents split up, the film was written by Peijnenburg and Bastiaan Kroeger and stars Carice van Houten. Cineart is handling the Benelux release.

Partners

Otten was aware the film’s hyper-local Dutch setting could make it a tricky prospect for potential co-producers but it when the project was selected for the Les Arcs co-production market in 2022, she realised the location wouldn’t be a problem.

“People could really relate to the personal story of this film,” she recalls. “They recognised themselves in the story, and some people even got moved to tears during our pitch.”

What also helped was having The Reunion on board as co-producers, the new Flemish outfit run Lukas and Michiel Dhont. Peijnenburg and Lukas Dhont are close friends with similar filmmaking sensibilities having both passed through the Cannes Cinéfondation talent programme at the same time.

“Although The Reunion is a relatively new production company, they stand for quality, just like us, so teaming with them helped get things done,” says Otten. “We had in-depth conversations about the script, the casting and the editing. They are precise, involved, they have a good taste and are great people to work with. They are also a good partner to have [when applying for] the Flanders Audiovisual Fund (VAF) and Eurimages funding.” 

A Family ended up with a €2.7m budget funded by the Netherlands Film Fund, the Dutch production incentive, VAF, the Belgian Tax Shelter and Eurimages.

Branching out

Otten set up Juliet with producer Nathalie van der Burg in 2021, after 15 years of working with Pieter Kuijpers and Sander van Meurs at leading Dutch company Pupkin.

“Pieter’s focus is really on true crime and horror. You could say he is very intrigued by the dark side of life,” she explains. “The emphasis of my slate within Pupkin was on more optimistic stories. But I wanted to carry on working with Sander and Pieter because they are great producers and great human beings so we decided to create a label within Pupkin. We do auteur-driven filmmaking but we also do quite a lot of family and youth content, series and films.”

While the two companies share a building and office staff, Juliet is “100% autonomous”. Otten also has extra firepower thanks to French media conglomerate Studio TF1’s acquisition of a majority stake in Pupkin in 2018.

“I was a bit worried because author-driven films and our youth and family content were not particularly in the DNA of Studio TF1 but they have been enthusiastic,” she says. “I appreciate there are producers within the group in every European country that we can contact but we are free to work with whoever we want and [can] choose whichever sales agent we feel is best.”

Otten says she is stubborn and that she will stick with her directors for as long as it takes to get their films financed and launched. Nonetheless, she is frank about challenges still facing the Dutch production sector.

“Our market is overheated,” she says. “There are too many films for too few screens, so competition is very tough especially for artistic and crossover films.”

Juliet has several other projects from emerging young talents on its slate, including family drama All Inclusive Family from newcomer Emma Branderhorst, which has been chosen for the Netherlands Film Fund’s ‘TalentScope, an intensive coaching programme established in collaboration with international partners TorinoFilmLab, ACE Producers, and FilmForward.

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