04/06/2009

Dutch production outfit IdtV has announced it will produce The Heineken Kidnap, a film inspired by the 1983 kidnapping of Dutch beer mogul Freddy Heineken. The €5m project will be directed by Maarten Treurniet.

Crime writer Kees van Beijnum wrote the screenplay, using both new research and newspaper articles of the time. The film will be “inspired” by the case, and look at the contrast between the world’s most successful beer brewer and a thug in his early twenties hoping for a career in crime.

Incidentally, Heineken himself also dabbled in film production in his time, having produced Fonds Rademakers’ Like Two Drops of Water, which competed in Cannes in 1963. Though no cast has been announced so far, filming on The Heineken Kidpnap is expected to be underway within a year.

IdtV also recently wrapped filming on The Odd One Out, the feature debut of television veteran Johan Timmers. The film, written by popular Dutch playwright Maria Goossens and described as a slightly surreal family drama, is about the youngest child in a family of Dutch butchers who feels different.

Flemish actor Wim Opbrouck headlines a cast that also includes Viviane De Muynck, Jelle de Jong, Gijs Naber and Meral Polat.

The film, called Strange Blood in Dutch, is co-produced by Dutch broadcaster NPS, and also has backing from the CoBO Fund and the Dutch Film Fund. It will be distributed next year by A-Film after a possible Cannes launch.