21/08/2008

Dutch publishing sensation Vuurkoraal by journalist-turned-novelist Annet de Jong will be coming to the big screen. The novel, about a Dutch girl who goes missing on the Dutch Antilles island of Curaçao, was inspired by the disappearance of the American teen Natalee Holloway on Aruba in 2005.

The film, currently in pre-production, will be directed by Hans Pos and written by his regular collaborator Simon de Waal. Pos is more well-known as one of the producers of Shooting Star Filmcompany, which has had a lot of success with Dutch films aimed at children, including last year’s Kapitein Rob en het Geheim van Professor Lupardi, directed by Pos and co-written by de Waal. The company will also produce Vuurkoraal.

In the de Jong novel, Dutch 17-year-old Merel is offered a trip to Curaçao with three of her girlfriends as a graduation present. She parties away on the tropical island, until one day she goes missing. A journalist of the Dutch-language local newspaper Amigoe follows the case of her disappearance but inadvertently gets involved in the case herself. The disappearance will wreck the lives of seven people.

Simon de Waal commented: “Vuurkoraal might bring to mind the Natalee Holloway case, but Annet de Jong is inventive enough a writer to bring her own intriguing twists to the story. It will be a big challenge to turn her material into a screenplay.”

Filming on the ambitious project is scheduled to start in 2009.