Another View 2013 / Boven is het stil / Netherlands, Germany 2013
This tale about 50-year-old Helmer, living on a family farm with his old, infirm father, is a visually powerful and delicately told story about a man who liberates himself from the ingrained and misguided notions he had about himself. The film is dedicated to excellent lead Jeroen Willems in the role of Helmer, and it received its premiere screening in the Panorama section at this year’s Berlin IFF.
Helmer is a 50-year-old farmer living with his ailing and bedridden father, who relies on his son’s help. From time to time, Johan, a man close to Helmer’s age, shows up to collect the milk. Helmer is secretly fascinated by Johan. His father’s increasing infirmity quietly sets Helmer’s hitherto stagnant existence in motion. On an impulse, he decides to move his father up to the attic; he buys himself a double bed and takes on a young farmhand named Henk. This visually powerful film gets by with practically no dialogue, even though we discover all the essentials about the taciturn, idiosyncratic hero, who has finally made up his mind to become the person he really is. The delicately told story, which plays out for the most part on the family farm, draws its strength from the subdued and profoundly intimate performance by the excellent Jeroen Willems, to whom the film is dedicated. From the first moment Willems appears on screen, the viewer is mesmerised by his very being, observing his gradual inner transformation as it occurs. This film, about a man who liberates himself from the ingrained and misguided notions he had about himself, was screened in the Panorama section at this year’s Berlin IFF.
93 min / Color, DCP
Director Nanouk Leopold
/ Screenplay Nanouk Leopold, podle románu / based on the novel by Gerbrand Bakker
/ Dir. of Photography Frank van den Eeden
/ Music Paul M. van Brugge
/ Editor Katharina Wartena
/ Producer Stienette Bosklopper, Els Vandevorst
/ Production Circe Films, N279 Entertainment Production
/ Cast Jeroen Willems, Henri Garcin, Wim Opbrouck, Martijn Lakemeier
/ Contact Playtime
Nanouk Leopold (b. 1968, Rotterdam) was initially interested in design. She graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Rotterdam in 1992 and from the Film and Television Academy in Amsterdam in 1998. Her graduation film Weekend (1998) won the Tuschinski Award at the Netherlands Film Festival, among others. As director she was involved in several medium-length TV titles and she also worked in journalism. Her feature debut Îles flottantes (2001), which she also scripted, was screened in competition at the Rotterdam IFF and later at Karlovy Vary. Her second film Guernsey (2005) was selected for the Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes. She also shot the films Wolfsbergen (2007) and Brownian Movement (2010). Her work has been shown to critical acclaim at many international film festivals.
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