09/10/2008

Dutch children’s film Radeloos (“Desperate”) went straight to the top of the charts last weekend with an impressive take of almost €250,000 from just under 100 screens. It was written and produced by Maria Peters and directed by Dave Schram and is the third adaptation of a popular youth novel originally written by Carry Slee.

The two previous adaptations were also made by Schram and Peters. The couple first made Afblijven in 2006 (written and directed by Peters, produced by Schram), and followed this in 2007 with Timboektoe, again written by Peters, who also produced, and directed by Schram. The duo made the films for their production company Shooting Star, with Bridge Entertainment distributing via RCV.

Radeloos stars Marius Gottlieb and Marloes van der Wel as two struggling 17-year-olds. Gottlieb plays a part-time DJ who takes to the bottle after the death of his father and van der Wel a girl with an eating disorder who is secretly in love with him.

The box office charts also feature two other local children’s features: The Seven of Daran: The Battle for Pareo Rock, directed by Lourens Blok, and The Letter for the King, directed by veteran Pieter Verhoeff (see interview).

The latter, a medieval knight story based on a popular novel, has raked in €1.7m since its release 12 weeks ago for distributor BFD. Daran, the first of a series of films set in Africa released by Walt Disney Studios, has accumulated over €150,000 in three weeks.

A fourth Dutch language film, this time aimed at adults and from neighbouring Belgium, also cracked the top twenty, despite being released on just ten screens. Moscow, Belgium [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] got of to a good start with a screen average of €2,000 for distributor RCV.