Currently, several projects, both documentary and feature film, are in production or development. Filming for LONG LIVE THE KING (working title) by Kees-Jan Husselman has recently resumed now that there is a workable Covid-19 film protocol. LONG LIVE THE KING is a documentary for broadcaster HUMAN that takes place within the Ghanaian immigrant community of Amsterdam Southeast: the elected Ashanti king of the Netherlands Nana Nyanin must protect his position against the rise of Queen Nana Ama Serwaah who has been appointed by the supreme king in Ghana and employs a much more traditionalist policy.

Laura Hermanides received a grant from the Netherlands Film Fund for developing her project WHITE FLASH in the framework of New Screen low budget.
Logline: After a psychiatric circuit of twenty years, a date is set for René for his much desired humane ending. Can his parents finally let go of him as the ultimate expression of their love?

WASTED BEAUTY by Lex Reitsma will be a film about the portraits of photographer Koos Breukel. The documentary is made for Close Up by broadcaster AVROTROS, with support from CoBO, Fonds 21 and the Pictoright Fonds.
Logline: Koos Breukel, once named the best portrait photographer of the Netherlands by fellow photographer Rineke Dijkstra, knows how to engage his models in front of the camera and how to intimately connect with them. This leads to intriguing portraits that make you curious about those portrayed. Koos searches for himself in every portrait. For him the act of photography has everything to do with the processing of trauma.

In the Young Cinema Competition at the Hong Kong International Film Festival Kala azar was awarded with a Special Mention.

From the jury report:
“This film is distinguished by the multisensory evocation of a world in which animals and humans share common urges, basic needs, and vulnerabilities to zoonotic diseases. With an idiosyncratic outlook that seamlessly melds the perspectives of people and pets, Rafa does not shy away from the often unpleasant sounds, odors, tastes, textures, and sights that connect humans to animals through their shared mortality.”

The film had previously won the KNF (Circle of Dutch Film Journalists) Award at the International Film Festival Rotterdam at the beginning of the year where it was selected for the Tiger Competition, the main competition of the IFFR.

The film was selected for De Verbeelding (“Imagination”) 2016, a collaboration between The Netherlands Film Fund and the Mondriaan Fund. Kala azar is produced by SNG Film in co-production with Athens-based production company Heretic.
The film was released in Dutch film theatres by Gusto Entertainment from August 20.

The DVDs of both Highway NL (2019) by Ben van Lieshout and Leonie, actress and spy (2020) by Annette Apon are now available and can be ordered in the SNG Film webshop. The DVDs cost €15 each.

logline Highway NL:
Highway NL is a poetic and biting road movie about the intriguing and fascinating world on and off the highway. A cinematographic ode to the ever-growing highway infrastructure in the Netherlands. Or is it an indictment of its all-embracing proliferation?

logline Leonie, actress and spy:
A film about Leonie Brandt, an actress who used her talent in the thirties and forties to become a brilliant double agent and after the war was able to weave an inextricable web of intrigues and mysteries.

SNG Film is currently digitising its rich archives. We believe that these films deserve to be seen and have therefore made several available, in their entirety, on the Vimeo channel of SNG Film.
The first films that can be viewed are the experimental documentary THE CHESTNUT TREE AND THE RIVER by Marieke van der Sloot and the animation films MATCH and SHELLS by Jef Nassenstein.

THE CHESTNUT TREE AND THE RIVER shows the developments in a landscape from the perspective of a chestnut tree. In 2010 the film won the Silver Sierra Film Award at the Yosemite International Film Festival.

Vimeo-link THE CHESTNUT TREE AND THE RIVER: https://vimeo.com/273888125

MATCH was screened in competition at the prestigious Venice Film Festival in 2003 and SHELLS was equally screened in competition at the Netherlands Film Festival in 2007. In both films figures are followed as they navigate through a fantastical universe.

Vimeo-link MATCH: https://vimeo.com/332417178
Vimeo-link SHELLS: https://vimeo.com/332401435