Whodunit Wednesday: Film

As a New Years starts some people look to the various awards ceremonies for film which will soon be talked about. People will watch other people walk down a red carpet, listen to names presented and decide if a movie is worth watching or not - sometimes simply based on whether there has been an award or not. 

The Dutch-language world is quite small, so although there is a Dutch-language film market, most Dutch-language film makers make their films in English. Paul Verhoeven known Dutch filmmakers include Paul Verhoeven was a film director who was successful with both Dutch-language films and within the world scene. Although his movies not be ones you might have seen, they were well received within the film world and include: RoboCop, Total Recall, Starship Trooper, Hollow Man and Basic Instinct. 

Dutchman Theo Van Gogh is best known perhaps because of his name and the fact that he was assassinated because of his film content. He made controversial films about controversial politicians. The film for which he was murdered was about women in Islam and their treatment. 

Jan de Bont is another Dutch film director, perhaps best known for his action films Speed and Twister, but he also worked as director of photography on films such as Die Hard, The Hunt for Red October and Basic Instinct. 

For Belgians, the list runs a bit differently. Belgium is of course a multi-language market, serving both Dutch speakers and French speakers. The French-speaking market is much larger than the Dutch-speaking market. There have been plenty of directors within the French-speaking market who would not be known by English-speaking followers of film. 

Chantal Akermans is best known for her film ‘Jeanne Dielman’ which is considered by some in the film world to be one of the best films made. Others, like Akermans, have made their fame either in Dutch or French, including Stijn Coninx, the Dardenne brothers and Erik Van Looy. Van Looy directed his film ‘The Loft’ first in Dutch before also directing the US-remake. 

More recently films like “The Broken Circle Breakdown” and “Beautiful Boy” from Felix van Groeningen, “Girl” from Lukas Dhont, “Bullhead” from Michaël R. Roskam, and the “Bad Boys for Life” with Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah have brought Belgian filmmakers into the spotlight. 

Depending on what kind of film you might watch, what kind of film might garner an award (Foreign Language film, for example), or if a film is in English or not, you might have watched or be planning to watch a film by a Dutch or Belgian director. Sometimes the name might give it away (with a “van” or “de” in the middle), but you might not know unless you look into it a bit further.