08/04/2011

Touted as the first Dutch feature film to be shot in 3D, the historical epic Nova Zembla represents a particularly ambitious second film for Dutch media mogul Reinout Oerlemans (photo). His 2009 directorial debut Love Life [+see also:
trailer
film profile], based on a bestselling novel, sold more than a million tickets in a country of just 16 million inhabitants.

Nova Zembla recounts a famous Dutch sea-faring expedition that went horribly wrong in 1596. The cartographer and captain William Barents (veteran actor Derek de Lint, Black Book [+see also:
trailer
film profile]) was convinced that a northern passage existed to China and the Indies, somewhere northeast of Norway and past Russia, and in 1596 made his third and final attempt to find this passage. (The Barents Sea in this area is named after the seafarer.)

Barents’ young cabin boy is Gerrit (Robert de Hoog, Dusk), a former assistant of a Protestant pastor (Flemish actor Jan Decleir, Character) who’s in love with the pastor’s beautiful daughter (Dutch supermodel Doutzen Kroes, making her debut). The pastor decides to let the inexperienced boy join Barents and his crew as a way to let him prove his love for his daughter.

But though they left during the height of summer, the ship eventually stranded between moving ice sheets close to the island of Nova Zembla (Novaya Zemlya in Russian), where the crew built a house when it became clear their ship could be crushed by the surrounding ice. From there, they tried to survive the harsh, winter-like conditions and think of a plan to return home.

Shooting on the production will start in several weeks and will take place in Iceland, Greenland, Belgium, on the North Sea and in Amsterdam. The film will be shot using stereoscopic cameras.

Oerlemans’ company Eyeworks Film & TV Drama will again produce, in association with Inspire Pictures. Benelux Film Distributors will handle the local release, which is already planned for November 24, a release date very similar to Love Life.