13/03/2008

Dutch production company IJswater Films launches the first film through its new distribution arm Waterfront Film Distribution today. Skin [+see also:
trailer
film profile], the feature debut of Golden Bear winner Hanro Smitsman, will debut in four theatres before making the rounds on the arthouse circuit.

Smitsman’s film is part of the “telefilm” series that is mainly financed for and by one of the Dutch broadcasting networks, with some of the titles debuting in cinemas a few months before their first scheduled airing on TV.

Recent examples of successful telefilms also distributed in cinemas include Schnitzel Paradise [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Martin Khoolhoven
interview: Mimoun Oaïssa
film profile] (see Focus), with over 365,000 admissions in 2005, and this year’s Nothing to Lose (TBS), which debuted at the Rotterdam Film Festival and has so far attracted over 100,000 filmgoers.

Skin is inspired by a true story that took place in 1983, when the 16-year-old son (Robert de Hoog) of a Jewish father (John Buijsman) severely traumatised by WWII turned from a difficult teenager into a neo-Nazi and killed a 13-year-old boy of Antillean decent. The film was written by the director in collaboration with Germen Boelens and Philip Delmaar.

Waterfront will use the digital distribution network of Cinemanet to bring Skin to 12 cities ahead of its May 8 television premiere, with stops that include Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Utrecht, Maastricht and The Hague. The film will be preceded by Smitsman’s short Contact (Raak), which won the Golden Bear in Berlin last year.

Skin was produced by IJswater in co-production with Kasander Film Company, the CoBO fund, the Public Broadcasting Network, the Humanist Broadcasting Organisation, the Stimuleringsfonds and the Ministry of Culture.

Producer Marc Bary of IJswater Films has said they might also release foreign co-productions through their Waterfront label.