HOLLAND
Brownian movement
2010 – 35mm – color - 100’
Direction: Nanouk Leopold
Screenplay: Nanouk Leopold
Cinematography: Frank van den Eeden
Editing: Katharina Wartena
Set design: Elsje de Bruin
Music: Harry de Wit
Costumes: Ulrike Scharfschwerdt
Cast: Sandra Hüller, Dragan Bakema, Sabine Timoteo, Ryan Brodie, Frieda Pittors
Producer: Stienette Bosklopper, Herbert Schwering, Ellen de Waele
Production: Circe Films, Serendipity Films
SYNOPSIS
Brownian movement is the inexplicable, “swarming” motion a speck of dust makes, when pushed about by the (invisible) molecules of the fluid it is floating upon. Nanouk Leopold used this phenomenon as a source for her main character Charlotte, a medical doctor and married woman, who is moved by erratical desires under the surface of her harmonious, middle class life.
At the hospital where she works, Charlotte carefully selects male patients to have sex with in an appartment she has rented in town. The secret moments she spends with a variety of men - corpulent, hairy, elderly - give Charlotte a fulfilment she cannot find in her one-child marriage with Max. When Max finds out what Charlotte has been up to, their marriage breaks down. Charlotte and Max desperately try to save their relationship.
THE DIRECTOR: NANOUK LEOPOLD
Nanouk Leopold (1968) studied at the Visual Arts Academy in Rotterdam and at the Dutch Film & Television Academy in Amsterdam. Her feature film debut Îles flottantes was selected for the Tiger Award Competition at the International FF Rotterdam 2001. Leopold’s second feature Guernsey was selected in 2005 for the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs of the Cannes Festival and was also selected for international festivals such as Pusan, Edinburgh, Chicago, Melbourne, Brussels and Cairo. It won the Golden Calf for Best Director and the Dutch Film Critics Award for Best Dutch Film of the Year. Wolfsbergen premiered in 2007 as part of the Forum in Berlin received the Special mention Caligari Film Prize at the Berlin Film Festival and won two Golden Calves at the Netherlands Film Festival. It was selected for festivals of Toronto, Pusan, Sydney, Melbourne, Copenhagen, London, Durban and Göteborg amongst many others. Brownian movement is Nanouk Leopold’s fourth feature film.
DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT
“ (...) Robert Brown discovered the irregular movements are based on little collisions with the atoms that are in the liquid or gas. In the film I explore how sometimes your lifes takes another turn, and even though you can’t see it there is the reason for this change of direction. (...) In the beginning, I wrote more dialogue but cut quite a bit out during the rehearsals. We found there was a lot we didn’t need. (...) Locations for me are the most important part of the film. I couldn’ t make the film unless I had the right room for the opening scenes, I try to create emotions by creating a certain environment, it may sound strange but the face is the last thing I want to use to create an emotion.”
FILMOGRAFIA
1997 Marseille1-2 (corto)
1998 Weekend (corto)
1999 Max Lupa (TV)
2001 Îles flottantes
2005 Guernsey
2007 Wolfsbergen
2010 Brownian Movement
FESTIVALS
2010 Toronto IFF
2011 Berlinale: Forum
