Wilde mossels
Erik de Bruyn / NL, 2000 / 115 min.
To mark the premiere of Erik de Bruyn’s latest feature film J. Kessels, Film NL is screening the digitally restored copy of Wilde mossels, De Bruyn’s feauture film debut of 2000. His portrait of a group of friends growing up in a fishing village on an island in the southwest of the Netherlands was described as ‘Chekhov on clay soil’. With Fedja van Huêt and Frank Lammers, who are also the leading actors in J. Kessels.
In this “potato western on Duiveland”, the tormented and charismatic thrill-seeker Leen and his buddies Daan and Jacob are wandering the empty streets of the fishing village where they live, a small place on an island in Zeeland where the only diversion is the annual mussels feast. Leen wants to struggle free from everything that”s holding him down, but proves to be a tragic antihero, a Hamlet in Zeeland.Erik de Bruyn”s portrait of a group of adolescent friends dreaming of a life beyond the confines of their village was well received by the critics, who praised the dynamic narrative, the sturdy acting and De Bruyn”s script, a tragicomedy about fast motorcycle rides, smoking dried mussels and wild dreams. De Bruyn”s debut was the opening film of the Netherlands Film Festival in 2000.Producer Peter Vogelpoel and Erik de Bruyn took the initiative to have Wilde Mossels digitally remastered with support and assistance from EYE and the post production company Storm. Fedja van Huêt and Frank Lammers also star in J. Kessels, De Bruyn”s adaptation of the road trip novel of the same name by Dutch author P.F. Thomése.
Details
Director
Erik de Bruyn
Production year
2000
Country
NL
Original title
Wilde mossels
Length
115 min.
Format
DCP non-encrypted
Share your love for film and become a member of the Eye Society.