08/01/2019 - With the start of the new year, funding is divided among three documentaries and four feature films, including the latest project by the Oscar-winning director Steve McQueen

British director Steve McQueen, whose new Dutch project The Occupied City has been supported

The Netherlands Film Fund has granted support for seven projects (three documentaries and four feature films) with a total of €2.8 million. 

One of the films to be selected is The Occupied City (De Bezette Stad) by the award-winning director Steve McQueen, known for 12 Years a Slave [+see also:
trailer
making of
interview: Michael Fassbender
film profile] and Hunger [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Laura Hastings-Smith Rob…
interview: Steve McQueen
film profile]. The film, a documentary, is based on the book Atlas van een bezette stad (Atlas of an Occupied City), written by his wife Bianca Stigter, who is also credited as a screenwriter. The book focuses on visible and invisible traces of the second world war in Amsterdam, offering its readers an unknown history. The project will be produced by the Dutch outfit Family Affair Films in co-production with the UK’s Lammas Park and has been granted €800,000 in funding.

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Arne Toonen’s Playboy Priester (Playboy Priest) is one of the other beneficiaries. The project, produced by Rinkel Film and Hazazah Pictures in co-production with the Luxembourgish outfit Samsa Film and Belgium’s Cine Cri de Coeur, will receive €600,000. The same amount was also allocated to Threes Anna’s De Vogelwachter (The Birdwatcher), produced by KeyFilm. Jackie and Oopjen, in which one of the Golden Age painter Rembrandt’s paintings comes to life in front of twelve-year-old protagonist Jackie, has been granted €506,000. The film will be directedby Annemarie van de Mond and produced by Column Film and Fiction Valley.

Three documentaries have also received funding. The Waste Land by Chris Teerink is about the mysteries surrounding the TS Elliot poem of the same name. It is being produced by Doc.Eye Film and will receive €130,000 in funding. Reber Dosky’s new film Sidik and the Panther, which is being produced by Dieptescherpte will receive €100,000. Annette Apon’s Leonie, Actress and Spy, about the actress Leonie Brandt, who became a double spy during the war, has been granted €130,000. The film will be produced by SNG Film.

These funding grants are part of the NFF’s Screen NL programme for feature films, feature-length documentaries and animation productions. Throughout 2019, there will be five additional deadlines for the Screen NL grants: 15 January, 5 March, 24 April, 3 September and 15 October.