13/10/2010

Veteran Dutch producer Kees Kasander’s Kasander Film has signed a long-term multi-film production deal with Sam Taylor and Mike Downey’s UK-based Film and Music Entertainment (F&ME). The collaboration will initially produce four films over the next year worth over €12.5 m in production spend.

First up is Paula van de Oest’s The Domino Effect, which is financed by the Netherlands Film Fund, the Rotterdam Media Fund, COBO, VARA, Video Film Express with London post house Molinare utilising UK tax credits.

Next is Cross My Mind, which is in development with the UK Film Council, Screen Yorkshire and the Netherlands Film Fund, using support from the MEDIA Programme’s development Fund. British director Antonia Bird (Priest) will direct in early 2011 from a screenplay by Naomi Wallace (Lawn Dogs) and Bruce Macleod (The War Boys). The film will shoot in Netherlands and the UK.

The third film is Peter Greenaway’s Goltzius and The Pelican Company, a co-production between Kasander Film in the Netherlands, Film and Music Entertainment in the UK, CDP in France and Film Afrika in South Africa, and will shoot in Cape Town on a €2.0 million budget in summer 2011.

Lastly, the adaptation of the best selling Dutch children’s book, by Jan Terlouw, To Be King (Koning van Katoren) likely to be directed on a budget of €5 million by Sander Burger.

Kasander said, “The European market is such that we need to create a series of reciprocal production arrangements, which benefit all parties. And by hooking up with F&ME on a long term basis, we are creating another block in our series of international relationships that can provide as much security that is ever possible in this kind of business.”