Where were the producers? On Tomorrow's Maker's Day, the Netherlands Film Festival screened 48 graduation films from the Film Academy and other art schools. So the hall should have been full of film producers to scout all that new talent, but no, exactly today the Film Fund had organised a meeting with those Dutch producers. Not so convenient.
What did those producers miss? At least the winners of the three student awards that were presented. To start with, the Tuschinski Award for the best graduation film of the Film Academy, designated by the Dutch film journalists. Those had fallen for MO by Eché Janga, a short feature film made with deceptive ease about the end of friendship between a Dutch and a Moroccan boy, set against the backdrop of Amsterdam's Slotermeer district. A subtle character and atmosphere sketch that also strikes just the right tone visually.
The latter can also be said of Kathem & Chris, a moving short documentary that actually tells the opposite story. Namely how Kathem, an Iraqi asylum seeker, and Chris, a Dutchman with a wild childhood, make friends in a Limburg village. Ruud Lenssen, a graduate of the Willem de Kooning Academy, does in just 12 minutes what others sometimes fail to do in an hour or more. Awarded best graduation film of the 'other academies'.
And then there were producers after all. No, not the truants from earlier, but newly graduated boys and girls who had chosen producer as their profession. There was a prize for them too, established by the Dutch Association of Feature Film and Documentary Producers, to highlight the importance of the work of the film producer. It is perhaps no coincidence that it went to Floor Houwink ten Cate and Jemima van der Tholen. The two films they had overseen as a solidly operating duo were also both nominated for the Tuschinski Award: the eventual winner MO, and the fine documentary Winter Sleep in Lukomir. (Leo Bankersen)
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