Amigos de sucesso 1 (OVERLEVEN)

Nous les avons connus aux Açores, Heinrich et Michelle. Au marché de Ponta Delgada. Ils apprenaient le portugais avec X et V. Venant d'Afrique du Sud, ils avaient cru trouver une île à mi-chemin entre l'Europe et l'Amérique. Un refuge ? Sao Miguel, c'était plutôt anywhere out of the world, comme aurait dit Baudelaire. Pas vraiment le bon endroit pour faire du cinéma. Ni non plus pour ouvrir un restaurant de rêve ( o vulcao) dans un endroit de rêve ( Caloura) avec de la live music, de la poésie, des rencontres... c'est rester un rêve. On a préféré à l'époque les régionaux de l'étape.
Je m'étais jetée avec frénésie dans la recherche de la bonne image... et puis ça n'a pas marché... J'ai gardé les pages et les pages de petits volcans précieusement.


Je les ai vus en novembre. Vous savez, ils étaient beaux comme des Vermeer dans leur maison de Hilversum. Ah, a dit papy, Hilversum, je connais, c'était écrit sur les postes de TSF. Dans le temps.
Ils nous avaient parlé de leur film tourné dans une ville nouvelle sur un polder avec des jeunes gens de là bas. Overleven. Survivre en hollandais. Eh bien, leur film vient de recevoir un prix en Afrique du sud. Un award. Ils sont heureux. On attend maintenant de le voir, ce film. Et bien sûr on est heureux aussi.

Best Short Feature Film Award for Netherlands Film ‘Overleven’

The short feature film, ‘Overleven’ (Surviving) (NL 2007, 52 mins.), a BUZZMEDIA NETWORK (www.buzzmedia.net) production, written and directed by Heinrich Dahms and produced by Michele Aime, on 26 April 2006 received the ‘Best Short Feature Film’ award at the first edition of the Cape Winelands Film Festival held in Stellenbosch, South Africa, between 18 and 26 April 2008. Other winners at the festival were Brazilian entry, ‘Mutum’ (Best Feature Film), ‘Taxi to the Dark Side’ (Best Documentary), ‘A Rose for Mari’ (Best Short Film).

The jury of this first edition festival, which was conceived and organized by film connoisseurs Leon van der Merwe and Martin Botha, consisted of a group of international filmmakers and academics, including renowned South African filmmaker Katinka Heyns, Mike Dearham (MNet), veteran actor Tobie Cronje, Taiwanese filmmaker and academic, Professor Yusan Huang, film critic Laetitia Pople (Die Burger), and Zivia Desai Keiper (Uhuru Productions). The jury had the following to say in their recommendation of Overleven for the winning award: “In Heinrich Dahms' movie the grim daily reality of the children on a polder in the Netherlands is projected in an totally open and honest way. The intellectual content and the emotional texture of the film is in a fine balance. The film is integrated with superb and fresh acting by the teenagers and the music is used in an unusual and clever way. The film impressed on all fronts.”

Overleven is a low-key ‘teen drama’ set in the sad and dreary, real-life setting of the Dutch polder. The main themes are survival and the redemption available in the acts of giving and accepting love. Even in the toughest circumstances, as long as there is love, there is hope. Luna (16) lives with her mother and six-year-old brother, Bas, in a dreary housing estate. When Luna stands up for herself against a teen gang member, Laura, she becomes the victim of the gang’s persecution.

The film features a cast of teenagers, including Mirjam Masereeuw as Luna, from the polder town of Almere where the film is also set. Producer Michele Aime: “We saw more than 300 teens and children in the auditions and finally ended up with a cast of teens, none of whom had ever acted before. That not withstanding, they were all extraordinarily ‘professional’ in their performances, as well as their approach to the work.”

Overleven was one of five short films produced in Almere, the Netherlands, for the first edition (2007) of the Life Under 20 Film Festival the brainchild of filmmaker Edsel Samson, who died tragically shortly after filming. All five filmed stories were written by participating youth from the province of Flevoland, after which professional filmmakers were commissioned to write and produce the films.

Director Heinrich Dahms, who was born in South Africa, and has been living in the Netherlands for the past 16 years, explains that “the Best Short Feature award is a double pay-off, as Overleven was my first feature film after a long break from film-making and my first significant return to the university town of Stellenbosch, where I graduated in political philosophy in 1977. I am honored to receive this award from such a distinguished jury and look forward to coming back next year with my new film, Schoft (Scum) (NL, 2008), a full-length feature film that explores the themes of racism and random violence in contemporary Dutch society.”