The Netherlands Film Fund, the country’s main film agency, has recently announced the third round of contributions provided by the 2018 Film Production Incentive. This provision offers financial contributions in the form of cash rebates on the eligible production expenditures incurred in the Netherlands. The organisation will invest €4.2 million in 15 new audiovisual projects, namely 11 feature-length fiction films, two feature documentary films, one documentary series and one animated drama series. Eight of these projects are international co-productions.

The two documentary features awarded funds are Inna Sahakyan and Paul Cohen’s Mel(ine) (€38,405) and Sergej Kreso’s Here We Move, Here We Groove (€105,165). Produced by Bars Media (Armenia) and Windmill Film, Mel(ine) revolves around the story of a popular weightlifter who begins to express gender nonconformity and seeks asylum in the Netherlands; meanwhile, Here We Move, Here We Groove is being produced by Doxy and focuses on the life of Robert Soko, a DJ and the founder of the Balkan Beats.

The only documentary series supported by the scheme is Robert Oey and Arjen Sinninghe Damsté’s The Rise and Fall of a Cannabis King (€256,650), produced by Topkapi Films. This six-episode project is a portrait of Johan van Laarhoven, the founder of a coffee-shop empire who was eventually arrested in Thailand and sentenced to life imprisonment. Furthermore, a cash rebate of €525,007 has been awarded to an animated drama series – namely, Meikeminne Clinckspoor’s Doopie, produced by Submarine Film in co-operation with Belgian firm Walking the Dog. Doopie is a preschool series and an experimental crossover between live action and puppeteering animation techniques.

In total, four domestic fiction-film projects have been granted support – namely, Will Koopman’s family drama April, May, June (€700,025, produced by Talpa Fictie), Johan Nijenhuis’ new comedy, 30 Years of Love (€459,325, produced by Johan Nijenhuis & Co), Aniëlle Webster’s romantic film In Love and War (€389,981, produced by KeyFilm) and Diede in ‘t Veld’s Little Crumb (€553,096, staged by Nuts & Bolts Film Company and REP Film), a sequel to the 1999 film of the same name.

Finally, the seven international co-productions benefitting from the incentive include Paula van der Oest’s The Bay of Silence (€241,114), co-produced by Levitate Film and TBOS Film (UK); Frederike Migom’s Binti [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] (€50,000), produced by Bulletproof Cupid (Belgium) in co-operation with Dutch partner Family Affair Films; Tim Mielants’ Patrick [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] (€70,000), produced by Topkapi Films in collaboration with Belgian firms Versus Production, Savage Film and Eyeworks Film & TV Drama; Norbert ter Hall’s The Promise of Pisa [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] (€437,113), co-produced by All Yours Film and Minds Meet (Belgium); Alberto Ferrari’s A Son Named Erasmus [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] (€132,500), produced by Dutch outfit FATT Productions in co-operation with Italian partners Lime Film and Eagle Pictures; Sven Huybrechts’ Torpedo [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] (€249,057), a Belgian-Dutch-Maltese feature whose lead producer is Belgian company A Team Productions; and Louw Venter’s The Tree (€45,000), a Dutch-German-South African co-production led by Urucu Media (South Africa) in collaboration with Leitwolf Filmproduktion (Germany) and 100% Halal Productions. 

The next round of applications for the Film Production Incentive for film productions and high-end TV series will open on 3 September 2018.