_{Bero Beyer - Picture by Ferdy Damman}

“It is a big deal. People get to perform their film projects to one another… it is a total new way of handling things,” Beyer says of the new scheme which aims to uncover filmmaking talent which has previously been missed by funders. It is a tacit acknowledgement on behalf of the Fund that some of its talent development schemes in the past have been “archaic, focused on written dossiers, where cinema is an audio-visual medium.”

The aim is to cut through the bureaucracy and make the application process lively and accessible. Cypher is aimed at self-taught talents who would not normally think to apply to a film school and do not feel themselves part of the media mainstream.

Around 20 projects were chosen for development, four or five of which will be given production support of €40,000 each.

Beyer talks of taking matters “step by step.” In the first instance, shorts will be supported. “We want it also to be [done] swiftly, with a quick turnaround… there is often this huge expectation that if you have a new idea, boom, go make a feature film - and that sometimes turns into a disappointment, as people realise just how hard that is.”

The Fund head sees Cypher as a companion piece to New Dawn, the international fund/scheme (in which the Film Fund is one of the nine partners) aimed at boosting diversity across European cinema. “It is basically broadening the scope of filmmakers who get to make films,” he explains. “And we are having fun with it as well.”

As minority partners, Dutch producers are strongly represented in Cannes this year. Topkapi is one of the co-producers of Belgian wunderkind Lukas Dhont’s new competition entry Close while Circe has co-produced Turkish director Emin Alper’s Burning Days in Un Certain Regard. These, though are minority co-productions. The ambition is for the Dutch to have more of their own productions in official selection. It is almost a decade since Alex Van Warmerdam’s Borgman was in the 2013 Cannes competition - and many years before that since the Dutch really made a splash in the festival.

“Something in the process is not working,” Beyer acknowledges. “One of the elements is that the Netherlands has been slightly more Anglo-Saxon oriented rather than Francophone-oriented. We are looking more to Sundance and Toronto rather than to Cannes. That is part of it. But mainly it is a wake-up call for us to realise that we need to be more realistic about how to fulfil our ambitions with the talent that we have.”

One strategy to boost the international profile of Dutch films is to invest more in them. The Fund is announcing this week the three projects which will receive selective funding of up to €1.8mn. These projects will also be eligible for automatic funding. The idea is to back the most talented filmmakers to the hilt and to enable them to tell their stories on a bigger scale.

There are also initiatives in Cannes this week like CineSud’s “Talents to Cannes” programme to ensure that young Dutch filmmakers attending the festival for the first time make the best use of their opportunity.

Beyer recalls that when he first attended the festival in 2002 as the producer of Hany Abu-Assad’s Rana’s Wedding (which screened in Critics’ Week), he “had no clue” how to navigate the event.

The Fund supported all sectors of the industry during the pandemic, enabling production to continue and cinemas to stay in business. “We have done a pretty decent job of keeping the film sector alive in terms of keeping people in work. But the hit is coming now,” Beyer warns of the pressures currently facing Dutch cinema. There is now a backlog of films looking for release. Some parts of the audience (especially older viewers) are still nervous about going back to cinemas. Fund staff are worried that there will now be even more of a gulf between the big Hollywood tentpoles movies, which will dominate admissions, and more independent, adventurous filmmaking, which may struggle for traction. However, extra support has been made available to distributors and exhibitors to ensure they keep Dutch films in their programming plans.

“We had hoped to be done with Corona support but the effects are still lingering on,” Beyer says of new schemes the Fund is still obliged to put in place to protect the local industry as it comes out of the pandemic.

Inward investment, though, is now resuming. International productions have been coming back to the Netherlands, drawn by the Dutch cash rebate incentive as well as the locations and local crews and services. Leading German auteur Fatih Akin recently shot part of his film Rheingold in Amsterdam (the project is co-produced by Dutch outfit Lemming). The Fund is planning to raise the amount it makes available for minority co-production - and that will make Dutch companies year more attractive to potential foreign partners.

It is still to be confirmed when the new law requiring streamers to invest in the local industry will come into place. (The Fund is hopeful it will be later this year). Nor has the rebate scheme for high-end TV drama yet been made permanent.

As Beyer also notes, upheavals in the world (whether the war in Ukraine or the cost of the pandemic) are bound to have a knock-on effect on the film industry. “Money is going into defence, money is going into energy conservation… that makes sense but let us realise that this, allied with inflation, will have an impact on film production.”

Even so, Beyer remains optimistic about prospects for Dutch and international cinema. He cites again the New Dawn fund as an example of what can be achieved. “I am extremely happy and energised by the support of these funders. Nine funders coming together - that rarely happens!”

For more information on the Netherlands Film Fund, click here. Everything Dutch related at Cannes Film Festival can be found here.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

All films mentioned in this article are supported by the Netherlands Film Fund