Halls of local film festivals are full, the Dutch Film Fund is opening its doors to productions from non-European regions, and Caribbean film talent is growing rapidly. What seemed like a dream 15 years ago for filmmakers from the Caribbean part of the Kingdom seems to be slowly becoming a reality.
Films from the Caribbean part of the Dutch Kingdom are also attracting increasing attention outside the islands themselves. The Morelia International Film Festival in Mexico, for instance, showed a selection of five Dutch Caribbean and Surinamese short films in October. The Curaçao short film Sunny (2025) by director, screenwriter and producer German Gruber even screened at Tribeca in New York, and, according to Gruber, even played more often in the Netherlands than in Curaçao.
Small cameras, big ambitions
Gruber has witnessed these developments up close. About 20 years ago, he decided to study at the Utrecht School of the Arts (HKU), in order to gain knowledge to make films in the Caribbean part of the Kingdom. At the time, there was no film infrastructure on the islands, and Gruber actually liked that. “The idea of having to settle into an industry was harder for me than the filmmaking itself. So I thought: maybe we can make our own style here.”
His graduation project and first short film, E leyenda di Buchi Fil (The Legend of Buchi Fil), which tells the story of the Antillean legend about the strongest slave who ever lived, came out in 2008. “The idea of, you are really going to make a film that will be shown in a theatre, that was really a dream at that time,” he says.”
A year later, when Buchi Fil won Best Short Film at the Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival (TTFF), this dream suddenly became a reality and Gruber met more people from the Caribbean “with small cameras but big ambitions,” which inspired him to develop further in the film world.
A small sponsor pond
At the same time, he also ran into financial challenges. Opportunities for the then Netherlands Antilles to apply for subsidies in the Netherlands were scarce at the time. Indeed, to apply to the Netherlands Film Fund for a feature film, documentary or feature-length animation with the fund, the producer had to have produced at least one film that played in cinemas.
“Curaçao filmmakers don't have that,” says Eloise van Wickeren, then location manager and current film commissioner of Curaçao. “We do have cinemas here, but that's not what they mean by a theatrical release. Those criteria were very much focused on Dutch producers. And we couldn't meet that yet.” So in practice, that meant always collaborating with a Dutch producer, but then the work “would never really be ours.”
However, this Dutch connection and thus the language barrier also made co-producing with makers from other Caribbean or South American countries difficult. “We were also unable to apply for grants from other institutions internationally, because they saw us as part of the Netherlands,” explains Sulin Passial, owner of the Curaçao production company Pantalla Chica Productions.
“Nonetheless, we always had ambitions and we always made films,” says Passial, although it was often very complex to get the financial picture right. For instance, the producer says she once worked on a documentary for five years, because it was a challenge to scrape together sponsorships each time.
“If you don't have the equity, then you depend on sponsorship. And all the creatives on Curaçao, they fish in that same sponsorship pond,” Van Wickeren stresses.
Gruber's first feature, Sensei Redenshon (2013), was therefore a no-budget film, made with some financial help from private sponsorship and in collaboration with former classmates from the Netherlands.
Eye-opener
In 2013, more filmmakers started itching. So director and producer Dolph Van Stapele initiated Tula: The Revolt (2013), a feature film filmed on Curaçao about a slave uprising.
“That was actually a bit of an eye-opener for the rest of the community,” Van Wickeren explains. “The film community was not very large and active at that time, but Tula showed that we could therefore just shoot a feature film on Curaçao.” Similarly, the script of Double Play (2017) came off the shelf again after a decade.
To bring more structure to the local film sector, the Curaçao government appointed Eloise van Wickeren as the island's first film commissioner in 2017.
During the same period, the Curaçao International Film Festival (CIFF) also got off the ground at the initiative of the Fundashon Bon Intenshon foundation and the International Film Festival Rotterdam.
Since 2012 “the festival has been a catalyst for local filmmakers,” says festival director Michael Elias.
Islanders seem to be getting more interested in films: many of the festival's screenings are well-filled, and now a local production team organises the festival without outside expertise.
On the other hand, the festival also motivates local talent to pick up the camera. “Also in terms of the programme, we are increasingly seeing a shift towards what is made locally,” Elias adds.
Room for diversity
From around 2020, the year Black Lives Matter demonstrations spread across the Netherlands, calls for diversity and decolonisation grew in Dutch society, and with it the film industry.
“You see more and more documentaries being made that deviate from the white mainstream norm. Where black makers and other non-white makers are getting opportunities, taking chances, creating opportunities to make their films and tell their stories,” Emiel Martens, lecturer-researcher Postcolonial Film Studies at the UvA and founder of Caribbean Creativity, a non-profit organisation that programs and promotes Caribbean films in the Netherlands.
Since then, diverse Dutch audiences have been attending Caribbean film evenings more often, and Caribbean makers are regularly invited to events to screen and discuss their films.
Rapids
Over the past five years, therefore, the Dutch-Caribbean film world has gained considerable momentum.
After years of lobbying by Van Wickeren, Elias and local filmmakers and producers, the Film Fund adjusted its criteria in 2021. “They now have special consultants who are specifically put on applications from the Caribbean Netherlands,” Van Wickeren says. These consultants give Caribbean Dutch filmmakers extra guidance with their applications. And with success. “I think there are about three projects running at the Film Fund now,” she adds.
Since 2024, the CIFF also has a new competition Caribbean Focus, especially for filmmakers from the Caribbean part of the Kingdom, Suriname and the Diaspora. The winning films in this category will also be shown at the Morelia International Film Festival in Mexico and Film by the Sea in Vlissingen.
“Film industry is still a big word,” thinks Elias, but he looks hopefully at recent developments. “I would say it is the beginning of a film climate.”
In the same year, Curaçao opened the Krioyo film festival, which focuses purely on Papiamento-language films. “The halls are always full,” says Van Wickeren. Especially the older generations are interested. “You see that they very much need films in which they see in their own language and their own people, in which they can recognise themselves.”
She also sees that more and more local short films are being produced. “The fact that this festival exists, that also gives more motivation for local filmmakers to make short films. Because otherwise what is the purpose, if you can't screen it anywhere here?”
Studio Caribe
A big help in making these short films is the also 2024-based Studio Caribe. This Film Fund incentive scheme guides filmmakers from the Caribbean part of the Kingdom with workshops and individual coaching in making a short film, from development to production.
The Film Fund created this scheme when they noticed that besides a lack of opportunities for funding, there was also a knowledge gap on the islands. “There were also makers who knocked on our door but did not meet our criteria,” explains Monique Ruinen, head of film operations at the Film Fund. “If that happens a few times and at the same time you see that those might be people with talent, then you start thinking about other ways in which all the talent that is there in the Dutch Kingdom gets a chance.”
So far, there are only two producers in Curaçao with enough experience to submit a regular application to the Film Fund: Sulin Passial and Michel Drenthe. “Hopefully, more producers will eventually emerge from this track to submit in order to further develop the islands” film community,“ says Passial. "
There were almost 60 applications for the first edition of Studio Caribe, “which says something about the enthusiasm and talent that is actually there,” Ruinen believes. Twelve of these projects were selected for the development process, half of which will also be supported in their actual realisation.
Future plans
The growing number of Dutch and foreign productions on Curaçao are also pushing the envelope. These productions usually have bigger budgets and more experience, which also creates more jobs on the island.
“You see now that more and more people can earn their daily bread in the film industry. But that was really not the case ten years ago. It was mainly a hobby that people did alongside their dayjob,” Van Wickeren said.
Van Wickeren is also working on developing a small local film fund, because Dutch funds will also always continue to ask for ownership. “If your own government doesn't support you, why should the Netherlands?”
Challenges
So although Dutch Caribbean cinema has developed considerably in recent years, challenges remain.
“Getting picked up by a distributor, that actually still almost never happens,” Martens says, for example. When Caribbean films are shown in the Netherlands, it is mainly one-off screenings, “that is mainly done by non-profits, like Caribbean Creativity, but also other organisations, with specials that fall outside regular distribution ,” Martens explains. “Because distributors still often think: there won't be a big enough audience for that.”
Furthermore, the Dutch Caribbean film world is still very fragmented. Developments are mainly concentrated in Curaçao, while there is certainly a lot of talent and interest in Aruba as well.
Meanwhile, the filmmakers themselves are steadily pushing forward. “At some point, we ourselves also have to start seeing how we can grow,” Gruber stresses.
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