email print share on Facebook share on Twitter share on LinkedIn share on reddit pin on Pinterest

RELEASES Netherlands

Two local behemoths storm Dutch theatres

by 

Not one but two major local titles are released in the Netherlands today, and both are based on popular mainstream books.

Children’s tale Dik Trom [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
is based on a series of books by writer Joh. C. Kievit, who wrote six books about the eponymous, rather rotund and mischievous young farm boy between 1891 and 1931.

Director Arne Toonen, who worked from a screenplay written by Mischa Alexander, Wijo Koek and Luuk van Bemmelen, is not the first director to bring this working-class hero to the big screen, as film adaptations started as early as 1937 and continued through 1976.

(The article continues below - Commercial information)

Newcomer Michael Nierse plays the title character in this Benelux Film Distributors (BFD) release, which goes out on an enormous 104 screens. The film is simultaneously released in Flanders on nine screens. It was produced by Eyeworks.

An adaptation of a rather more recent novel is The Dinner Club, based on the novel by popular local crime novelist Saskia Noort. It is the second film adaptation of one of her books after Will Koopman’s The Dark House from last year, which did rather well with audiences. Though Noort has never adapted her own books for the screen, she did co-write the Dutch adaptation of Flemish thriller Loft [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
, which will be released next month.

The Dinner Club, directed by Robert Jan Westdijk, offers a mystery of sorts around the dinner table of several rather well-off couples and has an all-star cast that includes Halina Reijn, Thom Hoffman, Bracha van Doesburgh, Angela Schijf, Birgit Schuurman and Peter Paul Muller.

The film was produced by Infinity Film & TV. Like Dik Trom, it is also distributed by BFD, this time on 109 screens in the Netherlands and four screens in Flanders. For comparison: the other five films released today, including Buried [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Rodrigo Cortés
film profile
]
and Copacabana [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
, occupy a total of 57 screens.

(The article continues below - Commercial information)

Did you enjoy reading this article? Please subscribe to our newsletter to receive more stories like this directly in your inbox.

Privacy Policy