Like many other countries, the Netherlands have their own film industry with its own knacks, weirdness, rumors and history. Award-winning Dutch scriptwriter (and sometimes actor) Michel Bonset started a channel on Instagram in which he discusses four Dutch films every week. Old, new, famous, forgotten... he briefly covers each title, the stories surrounding the film, whether it moved him, and what the impact on audiences and the industry was. This channel is called
Kijk Nederlands Met Me, which means
Watch Dutch With Me, a play on Kenny-B's popular Dutch popsong
Paris in which he sings "Praat Nederlands met me!" (
Talk Dutch to me). It quickly gained thousands of followers, many from within the Dutch movie industry itself, and Bonset is now upgrading the channel to an official foundation, a platform to promote Dutch cinema. What are his plans and why is he doing this? We had a talk with him in which he explains everything.
ScreenAnarchy: How did the Watch Dutch With Me channel start and what were your intentions?
Michel Bonset: A few years ago I talked with a good friend of mine, Jurriaan Gorter, about
De Zeemeerman (The Merman, 1996), generally known as one of the worst, perhaps THE worst, film ever made in the Netherlands. And we wondered: how did it get that stigma? We know critics can be pretty harsh, and even harsher towards Dutch films, so we thought: let's find out more about this. That was how we got the idea to start a podcast called
Dutch Treat. In it, we'd talk about a "forgotten" Dutch film from the 70s, 80s or 90s, and in the first episode we covered
De Zeemeerman and interviewed its director Frank Herrebout. And he talked extensively about what had happened, the influence from several producers, it was a lot of fun. We made a few more episodes but we didn't get any external financial support and it started to become a very expensive hobby. We stopped after twelve episodes but the idea kept itching. I often discuss films with people and I noticed that when I brought up any Dutch films, no matter the age of who I was talking to, I often would get the remark: "Huh, never heard of that? But sounds like fun!". So at the end of last year
I started on Instagram with
Kijk Nederlands Met Me, and we're also on
Tiktok and
Facebook these days. Three times a week I will pick a random Dutch film, the choice is based on nothing really, just what's available, what I got in my library or is on the streaming services, and on Sundays I cover a black-and-white film. And in three minutes I cover briefly in broad strokes what the film is about, where it fits in the Dutch cultural landscape, anything special about who made it, sometimes reflecting on current times, like when a film is nowadays unbelievably misogynistic... I will point out that this was maybe normal back then but impossible today. And... I'm not really that adept at social media and the subject is quite "niche", but in roughly three quarters of a year I managed to get almost 5500 followers on Instagram. And they are quite vocal, they react, ask for titles... and I noticed more and more filmmakers showed up. One of the first people chiming in is always Martin Koolhoven.
SA: And Dutch film journalists, I think they all watch your channel.
Hah, I like hearing that. Some filmmakers I did not expect, but a lot posted about it, shared it... actor Vincent Croiset is often in supporting parts but he carried a horror film recently,
Het Zwijgen from 2006, he's in frame for 100% of the film, and he did that so well I wanted to point attention to it. He loved my item and reposted it, and commented that he saw others repost it as well. So... there is nostalgia of course, always a strong incentive, but a lot of filmmakers like it when older work of them gets positively noticed. One rule I set for myself at the start of the channel is that I want to keep things positive. That doesn't mean I won't criticise, but there's no need to cut things down and cover it with a typically Dutch sour negativity. It's not just critics. If you look on social media like LinkedIn, I see filmmakers discussing venomously about things like that too much money from the Dutch Film Fund is going to arthouse and not enough to big films. Potential cinema visitors are reading those sour comments as well, and if I were one of them I might think "Forget it, there is so much bullshit, so little love for what they're making, why should I go see this?".
SA: While we keep being surprised by how many good Dutch films there are every year, sneaking into people's top-10 lists even.
You can get surprised, yes. But one of the things I discovered is that the marketing is so often atrocious. Most of the time there is a tiny window for a trailer dumped online, a few posters in cinemas, then the film is released and it's gone before you even knew it was there. And also: without knowing what that film could have meant for you, what its connection to you might have been. I struggle with that. It's one of the main reasons why I want to turn
Kijk Nederlands Met Me into an official organization. If we want more people to go see Dutch films, more people need to feel compelled to see them. To feel an attachment with the films which are about to be shown in cinemas.
SA: Why do you want to change the channel into a foundation?
I heard that people at the Dutch Film Fund also thinks there is too little promotion for Dutch films, and thought: "Hey, this is my part of this picture...". So I went to the Dutch Film Fund and told them I wanted to do something more than just make these small films. Maybe set it up as a business. Their comment was "But you want to talk about old films, new films, big films, arthouse... what exactly is your core target audience?". I told them that the new films are made on the shoulders of the old films, they are connected. It made me wonder... do I want to do something for a target audience or something else? I decided to choose a foundation as a business-form because foundations work easiest when applying for government funding, and the form gives me the chance to do a podcast about this, a long-form documentary about that, a screening with introduction of a special film. It allows me to do all sorts of small projects simultaneously, of different length, giving them all the space to crystallize. To focus on both old and new. For example, I would love to bring older and younger directors in contact with each other, and see what they'd start talking about.
I'm building this foundation based on three Bs. The first B is "Bewustwording", making people conscious about films. Basically what I'm doing now with pointing out four films each week. And I notice lots of films cannot be legally seen these days, there is no DVD any more and nobody streams Dutch films from before 2005. There are some exceptions but there are huge gaps. The second B is "Binding", the Dutch word for attachment, which we just talked about. I think we can keep people interested by putting films in the spotlight for a longer time, from pre-production till after the release. Visiting a script-reading, a location checker, casting... follow a film for a year during the production process. So when the film gets released, you recognize the title and have some knowledge what it's about. Another form of attachment which currently is missing is between audiences and filmmakers.
Ask a regular Dutch person to name three directors and they get into trouble. Paul Verhoeven, Bert Haanstra and maybe Dick Maas, maybe Martin Koolhoven. But there are so many young filmmakers and we don't know them, don't know what their priorities are, what they want to tell, what they aim for. And I don't just mean directors and scriptwriters, but also for example a color-grader, or the cinematographer. Costuming. "Filmmaking" is done by a blend of so many people, hundreds sometimes, who are working for years on something we consume in 100 minutes. What motivates them? And the third B is the most difficult one, "Bekijken", watching. My end goal would be a Netflix-like construction, a streamer, showing only Dutch productions. That means not just the cinema films, but also television films, short films... a place where people permanently will be able to see Dutch films. With introductions by experts, telling about context. Maybe add audio commentaries with filmmakers. This third B will take a few years to reach as there will be so many parties involved... But work on the foundation is moving forward and people are starting to join. Director Ben Verbong (famous for
The Girl With the Red Hair, 1981) is part of the foundation and that brings me to B number three-and-a-half, "Beroering", upheaval. Ben has experience with making films in extremely difficult circumstances, government interference and all, which has only made him more rebellious. He is talking about toppling institutions, and while I think the foundation can play a role there we will also, in a country as small as the Netherlands, have to work together with some of these institutions. We can do what we want though, the foundation is independent of these institutions, but we intend to prefer a softer touch. The main aim is: how can we make Dutch people feel more love, more respect and more pride towards Dutch films? If there is an international handball tournament in Uruguay, we suddenly all cheer for the Netherlands, and if the Dutch team wins we start waving with flags. But with Dutch films it's often "mwoa, probably one of those typically Dutch films...". And look at Blu-rays, only foreign companies release older Dutch films.
It would be great if we could have a place online where, maybe twice a week, we have Dutch filmnews. Just short snippets, show the trailers, show where films are in the production process. A phonecall with a director on a shooting day who says "this is going to be so cool, my film is about this and we just shot that!". Keeping the subjects fresh. Cover what is being made, what is nearly coming, what is in cinemas, and what is made available on streaming services. In the foundation we're currently designing ways to turn these plans into fund-able, subsidized projects. Let's see how far we get!
You can see Michel's musings on Dutch cinema on Instagram, and while he doesn't provide English subtitles (yet), Instagram allows switching on automatically generated closed captioning in English.