04/10/2013 - The Netherlands Film Fest in Utrecht comes to a close today, Wolf by Jim Taihuttu leads the nominations

The biggest annual celebration of Dutch cinema (and, more generally, Dutch audiovisual productions), the Netherlands Film Festival in the central city of Utrecht, will be capped today by the awards ceremony of the Golden Calves, the Dutch national film awards.

The festivities started on September 25 with the premiere of Hoe duur was de suiker [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (“The Cost of Sugar”), a historical, female-driven melodrama set against the backdrop of slavery and sugar-cane plantations in 18th century Suriname, a former Dutch colony in South America. The film is based on the bestselling 1987 novel by Surinamese author Cynthia McCleod (the daughter of Suriname’s first president, Johan Ferrier) and directed by Jean van de Velde. The film was released last week, right after the festival premiere, on 100 screens by eOne Benelux.

Another high-profile festival premiere that was also released last week is De nieuwe wildernis, from Ruben Smit and Mark Verkerk. The film’s a gorgeous widescreen documentary that looks at the unique Oostvaardersplassen natural reserve, where the biggest herds of deer and Konik horses in Europe live freely, just miles away from Amsterdam. Dutch FilmWorks released the film on 110 screens and it immediately became the number one film of the week, making over €635,000.

Another festival premiere was director Tim Oliehoek’s latest action comedy, Chez Nous. The film tells the story of the regulars at an Amsterdam gay bar threatened with closure who decide to steal a necklace of pink diamonds, Mission: Impossible style, during Amsterdam’s Gay Pride to save the titular bar. The film was written by Franck Houtappels, one of the country’s most high-profile screenwriters who wrote the hit Viper’s Nest, which made almost €15m in the Dutch box office in 2011. eOne released the film yesterday on 79 screens.

The frontrunner for tonight’s Golden Calves ceremony, Wolf [+see also:
trailer
interview: Marwan Kenzari
film profile] (photo) by director Jim Taihuttu, premiered in San Sebastian and was actually released a week before the festival. The black-and-white boxing and crime drama, released by Just Film Distribution, is playing on only 33 screens and still has a very healthy per-screen average of over €2,000. It has amassed almost €200,000 in two weeks.

Wolf leads the nominations for the Golden Calves with a total of eight nominations, including Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor (Marwan Kenzari), Best Editing and Best Cinematography.