_{Totem by Sander Burger}

During MIP-TV and Mipcom, Dutch Features CEO Pim van Collem may place the emphasis squarely on series sales, but at the Cannes Marché feature films are very much in the frame. And for van Collem that means family and genre, both Dutch and international.

A core family title is Sander Burger’s Totem*, produced by Rotterdam-based production company Volya Films and currently in post-production ahead of an Autumn 2022 delivery. In The Air Entertainment will release the film in the Netherlands.

In the film, passionate swimmer Ama (11), a child of Senegalese parents, finds solace in a totem animal - a gigantic, magical porcupine - when Dutch authorities prepare to deport her family.

“It is a fantastic and important film that triggers basic subjects such as diversity, and the refugee crisis. It is shot in Rotterdam and we have high hopes for it across all generations,” says van Collem. “It is the kind of family film that has the potential to go really international.”

Burger’s last film The Judgement* won four Golden Calf awards at the Netherlands Film Festival 2021 including Best Film.

Also on the Dutch Features family slate, buyers will be eyeing up the Finnish title The Hullabaloos, about the “loudest family in Finland,” says van Collem, who stick together through thick and thin. As the family sets out for Helsinki to celebrate the birthday of twins Mökö and Luru, their dog Pulla is accidentally swapped for the dog belonging to the president of Finland.

Van Collem describes the Swedish Mini-Zlatan and Uncle Darling (80 mins or 3 x 27 mins) as a “festival favourite… an irresistible family comedy that will warm your heart,” while the company’s “gloriously gloopy” effects-laden The Ghastly Brothers* recently premiered to acclaim at the 48th Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF). The Polish Detective Bruno, in which an 8-year-old orphan enlists the help of his greatest hero – an arrogant and obnoxious TV detective – to help him crack the clues for a mysterious treasure hunt created for his birthday by his late parents, opened recently on 150 screens in its home country.

On the company’s Prime genre slate are two Dutch films and one Czech film, plus a Belgian/Dutch co-pro set to shoot in 2023. In Joost Reijmers and Thomas van der Ree’s Herman Kills!, which van Collem describes as “a true festival favourite,” an ageing alcoholic decides to lessen the burden of care for his family by getting himself sent to prison, but he cannot even get arrested, despite killing criminal after criminal. Saskia Diesing’s tense courtroom drama Judgement Call, starring Jacob Derwig and Kim van Kooten, follows the controversial public battle between the new Dutch Prime Minister and the writer who accuses him of raping her twenty-five years ago. In the Czech Repulse, two dysfunctional families are plunged into bloody horror where nothing is quite what it seems.

Van Collem has great hopes for Belgian Thomas Van Brabant and Jasper Vrancken’s Pan, currently in development, which will shoot in 2023 ahead of a release in 2024. Dutch Features is co-producing the horror which is based on based on Arthur Machen’s 1894 novel The Great God Pan.

“We aim to guarantee a certain quality in all the titles we have,” comments the Dutch Features CEO. He concedes that buyers are cautious post-Covid, and that there is a backlog of produce still to be released. “But in the end quality sells, so we have a very strong selection procedure in acquiring titles. If it is a really good quality film and it addresses a major mainstream audience, then it will work.”

For more information on Dutch Features Global Entertainment, visit their official website here. For more information on Marché du Film, click here. You can read the full Dutch screening schedule here.
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*Film is supported by the Netherlands Film Fund and Production Incentive