"Greenaway came to us because no one in England would touch him," says Dennis Wigman, one half of the director's longstanding Dutch production partners, Kasander & Wigman.
Over ten years ago, Greenaway came to the International Film Festival of Rotterdam with one hit and a new script in his suitcase. The hit was The Draughtsman's Contract, the script was A Zed And Two Noughts and the rest is history. Today, the production duo has plans to expand its activities in the UK. By Adam Minns.
The The Hague-based production duo snapped up A Zed And Two Noughts and worked with the (now) acclaimed British auteur on each of his subsequent features except for The Belly Of An Architect. Kasander, Wigman and Greenaway have two projects in this year's Festival - The Pillow Book, in the main programme, and The Bridge Celebration, in the main programme short section. And this evening they officially announced their next collaboration, the exploration of multi-layered digital editing, interactive technolgies and the director's alter ego that is Tulse Luper's Suitcase.
Co-producers
"Tulse Luper will take the new technologies Greenaway has been working with to the next level," says Wigman. "The possibilities in the digital field are immense, and they are opening up film making to more and more people to create whatever they can imagine. When you consider The Bridge cost US$160,000 million, or that an international release such as The Pillow Book cost under US$4.5 million, the field of film making is increasingly open."
Wigman aims to bring up to three co-producers on board for Tulse Luper, which is now in script development stage and is set to start production early next year. London-based sales and production financing company Vine International Pictures is in the frame to handle worldwide sales, following the successful production/sales partnership between Kasander & Wigman, British production outfit Woodline Films and Vine on The Pillow Book.
Hooligans
Kasander & Wigman is now expanding its activities in the UK by co-producing Hooligans, a graphic portrayal of gang life on Dublin council estates that is being directed by the UK's Paul Tickell and is already being billed as an Irish Trainspotting. The $3 million production rolls in March, with Germany's Continent Films and the UK's Woodline Films co-producing. The film focuses on the life of a young ex-convict as he brawls his way through the inner-city squaller depicted, perhaps in softer focus, in Roddy Doyle's The Van. Vine has world rights.
Wigman insists he and Kasander are not singling out British film makers, citing two Dutch projects that are now in early stages of development. "The Netherlands is so small in terms of industry and audiences, we have to look abroad both for directors and financing. We don't try to find British directors, it just happens."
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