Rotterdam-based animation powerhouse Ka-Ching Cartoons has been in existence for 17 years now. The company was formed in 2007 by Joost van den Bosch and Erik Verkerk, two Dutch animation wunderkinds who had been at college together.

The company covers every animation base imaginable from commercials to shorts, from series to full length films. This year, it has two family animation features coming out, Tummy Tom And The Lost Teddy Bear and A New Friend For Tummy Tom. Tommy Tom is the international name for the much-loved character known as Dikkie Dik in the Netherlands who is the hero of a series of classic kids’ books by Jet Boeke. 

Both were made back to back in collaboration with the late Burny Bos, one of the legendary figures in Dutch family films who died in December 2023.

Another Ka-Ching project in a very different register is Beautiful Men*, the latest animated short from Belgian director Nicolas Keppens - and on which van den Bosch and Verkerk are the Dutch co-producers. Made in stop-motion, this is a poignant, funny story about three middle-aged brothers who travel to Istanbul for a hair transplant. The film (screening this week at International Film Festival Rotterdam before moving on to Clermont-Ferrand) delves deeply into the murky world of male narcissism, fear of ageing and social and sexual insecurity.

The collaboration between the Dutch animators and the Belgian filmmaker began at the Annecy Festival several years ago when Joost and Erik first met Brecht Van Elslande, Keppens’ producer.

“We sat with him [Brecht] and had a nice drink. He had a lot of projects with him. We went through the projects and we saw Easter Eggs. We were really interested in working on that because the style and the premise really spoke to us,” Joost remembers. They had also seen the Belgian director’s earlier short Wildebeest. “We really like the way he portrays people…their subtle feelings. It’s a mix of dry humour and sadness that is quite magical to see!”

Easter Eggs* (which also screened at IFFR) was an immediate hit. When Keppens asked if Erik and Joost wanted to work on the new film, Beautiful Men, they immediately leapt at the chance. Originally, this was intended to be shot as a traditional 2D cartoon, in the same style as Easter Eggs. 

“We said ‘we’re in, that’s great,’ and we got it funded here in the Netherlands,” Erik remembers. But then, just before production was about to begin, Keppens changed his mind and decided to use stop motion. “We went back to the Film Fund because he did not only change the technique but he was also changing the story. We had an almost new project!” Thankfully, the Fund remained “very supportive” even as the project morphed. 

Ka-Ching was put in charge of getting the puppets made to Keppens’ designs.

Van den Bosch enthuses about the “weird mix” of humour and pathos in the director’s work. Beautiful Men has received rapturous responses since its premiere in Ghent in the autumn. After IFFR and Clermont-Ferrand it will screen at SXSW. “But to co-produce a short for Nicolas is an exception to our usual work,” he adds. He and Verkerk tend to produce and direct their own films. 

“I’d say the way our studio has evolved is that we constantly do bigger projects,” Verkerk says. They started making small commercials but have now graduated to feature films. Their Tummy Tom movies have been made together with Phanta Vision (which in 2019 went into partnership with BosBros).

Both Ka-Ching bosses pay tribute to Burny Bos, the initiator of the Dikkie Dik films which are being co-produced with Belgian outfit Eyeworks (using Animal Tank, the company they worked with on Beautiful Men and Easter Eggs). 

“He [Bos] is the godfather of family film in the Netherlands,” van den Bosch says of the producer and children’s book writer who, in the 80s, headed up the youth department in the VPRO.

“He opened the door for enormous talents. He created shows that were a little edgy, really funny, that were like ‘am I allowed to watch this as a little kid?’ but that everybody still talks about,” Verkerk notes of Bos. “Then he started working in feature films. He said we need to do something because the market is completely overtaken by American cinema, but he said we can create high quality family entertainment here in the Netherlands too!”

Find the Dutch line-up at Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival here. Or discover the festival on https://clermont-filmfest.org/en/global/home/

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*Film is supported by the Netherlands Film Fund