_{Met Mes by Sam de Jong}

When neither the police nor the insurance company pay much attention, the journalist lies and says she was robbed at knife point. Then all hell breaks loose.

This, then, is a story touching on class and racial tension - but it is shot in bright, day-glo colours. The production design is stylised throughout. Even the performances are deliberately mannered.

“It is a movie that critiques media and filmmaking,” de Jong reflects. “Making the movie visible as a movie was key for us to avoid manipulation. Therefore, we used these vibrant colours. Also, we were wanting to show the world as a playground.”

Yousef (Shahine El Hamus) wants a new pair of sunglasses. If he does not have them, he is worried he will develop a frown on his forehead like his father. Eveline (Hadewych Minis), meanwhile, is tired of the superficiality of TV quiz shows and wants to make serious and uplifting films which show society as it really is.

“I really liked him (El Hamus) because he has a certain vulnerability. He is a boy and a man. He is also a very skilled technical actor,” the director says of the young actor of Dutch-Egyptian descent he cast in the leading role.

While El Hamus is a relatively newcomer, Hadewych Minis is a former Golden Calf winner (for Borgman*) who has huge experience on stage and screen. “She really understood the soul of that character, being career-driven in a male dominated world, trying to break away from that, no matters what the costs are.”

Equally experienced is Gijs Naber who plays Eveline’s boyfriend, a hippy type strongly into horticulture and spirituality but who has no problem with making morally objectionable choices when it is to his advantage. “In a way, he is a typical Dutch guy - a strong Dutch man,” de Jong says of Naber, recently seen opposite Lea Seydoux in last year’s Cannes Competition contender The Story of My Wife.

The satire in Met Mes* is partly at de Jong’s expense too. He is very conscious of his own vanity as an artist and filmmaker. He also sees it in others. “Secretly, it is a driving force for many people but it is rarely talked about… it is the pretence that art will save the world. A lot of people want to virtue signal and show they have their hearts in the right places.”

Amid the humour, the film is trying to draw attention to the way Dutch society in recent years has become increasingly dehumanised and subject to stifling bureaucracy.

Before the pandemic, de Jong made his previous film Goldie in the US. He is happy to be back home in the Netherlands, working in his own language. “It was really liberating [to be back]. There is more freedom here. In the US, the censorship was much greater in terms of what I was able to do. Also, I did noit know anyone. Here in the Netherlands, I have established myself in a way and I know the people I work with… and it is just nice to express yourself in your native tongue.”

Met Mes was produced by leading independent outfit Lemming Film. De Jong pays tribute to his producer there, Erik Glijnis. “He is just a really talented creative producer, very precise, and someone who is very good at dissecting a screenplay. He knows which knobs to turn to amp up the conflict in a film.”

De Jong is clearly in demand with many different Dutch producers. He is currently working on a drama about a mother-son relationship for Topkapi Films and is adapting teen novel "Joe Speedboat" for BALDR Film.

In the meantime, Gusto Entertainment will be releasing Met Mes in the Netherlands in the spring. An international sales agent is yet to be appointed.

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*Film is supported by the Netherlands Film Fund