01/02/2005

This year, the Rotterdam Film Festival, as always very supportive of politically committed cinema, has decided to honour the work of the local hero and friend of the Festival: Theo van Gogh. Last November, on the 2d, the Dutch director was brutally killed in a street of Amsterdam, because of the content of one of his short films, Submission.
« The madness of Theo van Gogh's murder, says Sandra den Hamer, director of the Festival, made us sad and angry at the same time. It is symbolic of the chaos in a world of politics and a world of media. Freedom for a director consists in beeing able to make films and show them unhindered. »
To defend this freedom, the Festival decided to show 06/05, the director's very last film, though not the least provocating, since its subject is the assassination of Pim Fortuyn. Energetic and skillful as ever, Theo van Gogh makes hypotheses about the plots and conspiracies that lead to this death, blaming the medias for their overall indifference and accusing Dutch politicians of hypocrisy and corruption. Starring Thijs Römer, Tara Elders, and Cahit Olmez, 06/05 has much to recommended it, not only the aesthetics but also the script which succeeds in conveying the turmoil around the main character up to his murder. The film was produced by Column Producties (late van Gogh and Gijs van de Westelaken's company) and Tiscali. The script is a work of Tomas Ross, the author of the book De Zesde Mei. Metronome Productions handles the sales.

This event release of the film will also be an occasion for Column Producties to give the very first Golden Cactus, the Theo van Gogh Award for Maverick Filmmakers, designed to thank a committed director, the Russian Ilya Khrzhanovsky for his film 4, officially selected to compete at the festival. Although the screening of Submission was cancelled, for safety reasons, the festival will include under the Dutch Perspective section Theo van Gogh's previous feature film, Cool ! , a film about Moroccan misfits starring Fouad Mourigh, Farhane El Hamchaoui, Johnny de Mol, and Katja Schuurman. The film was produced by High Point Films & Television, and FU Works.
CineMart also wished to have a part in this tribute; at the last minute, a 48th project was added to this year's selection, that is, three remakes in English of van Gogh's films, 06 (1994), Blind Date (1996), and Interview (2003). « Van Gogh was a friend to our festival, explains Ido Abram, the head of CineMart, and we discussed these remakes many times, van Gogh and us. It is the first time we have accepted a project after the official deadline but this one is particularly good and we wanted it to be our tribute to Theo van Gogh. »

(Translated from French)