The Netherlands Film Fund has made its first investments under new CEO, Iwana Chronis, who started in the job earlier this month.
The Fund is pumping €1.8m in Sacha Polak’s The Discomfort Of Evening, an adaptation of the novel by Lucas Rijneveld that won the 2020 International Booker Prize. The film is being produced by leading Dutch outfit Lemming.
“It’s a great story, set in the heart of the Dutch countryside,” said Chronis of the project about a 10-year-old girl living with her family on a Dutch dairy farm.
The Fund is backing the film through its Cinescoop scheme aimed at bigger projects with potential international appeal.
It is investing a similar amount in Once Upon An Egg, the first feature from Bafta-winning UK-based Dutch director, Nina Gantz. The film, pitched earlier this year at Cartoon Movie, is produced through Keplerfilm, A Private View and Hausboot and is being put together as a Netherlands- Belgium- Czech coproduction.
Victoria Warmerdam’s English- language feature version of her Oscar-winning short, I Am Not A Robot, has also received backing.
Chronis underlined the importance of international coproduction to Dutch producers, particularly with their Benelux neighbours.
“That is something we are going to build step by step,” she said. “We are looking at how we can promote films from the region better and how we can collaborate in a better way between the Funds.”
In Cannes this year, Dutch outfit Topkapi has coproduced Lukas Dhont’s Coward, while Sara Ishaq’s Yemen-set Critics’ Week title The Station, is supported by IFFR’s Hubert Bals Fund, and Dutch producer Ilse Hughan worked with Lisandro Alonso on Double Freedom, screening in Directors’ Fortnight.
The first projects selected for support through the Benelux Co-Development Fund, launched in 2025, will also be announced., w Various Dutch films are well placed for selection at festivals later in the year, including Jaap van Heusden and Vinnie Karetak’s Dutch-Canadian thriller In Alaska, starring Noomi Rapace, and Tallulah Schwab’s horror title Metric.
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