Guernsey

Colour, 35 mm
Netherlands, Belgium, 2005, 90 min
Section: Focus on the Netherlands

Synopsis

30-year-old introvert Anna lives with her husband and small son in the suburbs of a Dutch city. She regularly travels to Egypt for work where, one day, she finds her Belgian colleague hanging in the shower. No one seems to know why the woman killed herself; her husband thought his wife was happy. When Anna finds out that the dead woman’s husband has quickly found a new partner, she begins to think about her own routine life and her seemingly contented and stable marriage. She decides secretly to follow her husband, who once had a relationship with her older sister… Director Nanouk Leopold has come up with an existential, almost “Antonioniesque” drama about alienation which, in its “female” insight, is expressed more through refined images than the spoken word. The film won the Golden Calf for Best Director and the Netherlands Film Critics Award at the Netherlands Film Festival. The festival also presented Maria Kraakman with the Golden Calf for Best Actress for her excellent performance in the lead role.

About the director

Nanouk Leopold (b. 1968, Rotterdam) was initially involved in design work. During the years 1987–1992 she studied at the Visual Arts Academy in Rotterdam and in 1994 she enrolled at the Netherlands Film and Television Academy in Amsterdam. Her graduation film Weekend (1998) won the Tuschinski Award at the Netherlands Film Festival, among other accolades. As a director she made several medium-length TV films and also worked as a journalist (e.g. for the film magazine Skrien). Her feature debut Îles flottantes (2001), which she also wrote, was screened at a number of festivals, including the Karlovy Vary IFF. After the drama Guernsey (2005), last year she completed the feature film Wolfsbergen (2007), which won two Golden Calf awards at the Netherlands Film Festival.