Black Book

Zwartboek (2006)

Timing: 2:25 (145 min)

7.47/10
1105

7.678/10
31528

7.7/10
84000

All about film

Video 2

Photo 22

Actors and characters

Release date

2006-09-14

Country

Germany, Belgium, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Austria, Hungary

Production

Studio Babelsberg, Sony Pictures Classics, FFA, Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, Nederlands Fonds voor de Film, VIP 4 Medienfonds, Motion Investment Group, uFilm, Motel Films, Egoli Tossell Film, Fu Works, Hector BV, Media Programme of the European Community, Euroimages Fund of the Council of Europe, ContentFilm International, Clockwork Pictures, CoBo Fonds

Genre

Drama, Thriller, War

Budget

$21 000 000

Revenue

$26 768 563

Website

Director

Paul Verhoeven

Actors

Carice van Houten, Sebastian Koch, Thom Hoffman, Halina Reijn, Waldemar Kobus, Matthias Schoenaerts, Theo Maassen, Derek de Lint, Christian Berkel, Dolf de Vries
All actors and roles (10)

Scenario

Producer

Jens Meurer, Jeroen Beker, Jos van der Linden, Frans van Gestel, San Fu Maltha, Nadia Khamlichi, Adrian Politowski, Teun Hilte, Andreas Schmid, Charlie Woebcken

Operator

Karl Walter Lindenlaub

Composer

Anne Dudley

Artist

Astrid Poeschke, Ehud Segev, Ido Narkis

Audition

Job Gosschalk, Risa Kes, Matt Western

Editing

Job ter Burg, James Herbert, Karin S. de Boer
All team (221)

• The idea for the film originated with director Paul Verhoeven and screenwriter Gerarda Soeteman during the preparation for filming 'Soldier of Orange' (1977). Instead of incorporating an additional storyline into the film, they decided to create a standalone film in the future, with the script taking almost two decades to develop.
• Work on the film was on the verge of collapse in 2004 when a number of foreign companies failed to fulfill their financial obligations to the project. Production resumed only in the fall of 2005, when the necessary budget of 16 million euros was finally secured. More than 2 million euros of this amount came from various Dutch public organizations and the Ministry of Education and Culture. Due to this significant delay, producers had just over two months for the actual filming process.
• The film was submitted by the Netherlands for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film, made the shortlist of nine contenders, but did not make it into the final five nominees.
• Many of the actors in the film speak more than one language. It was most difficult for Carice van Houten, who speaks four different languages. For most of the film, she speaks her native Dutch, in the scenes in Israel – Hebrew, with German soldiers – German, and with Canadian soldiers – English.
• A significant delay in the film's production resulted in the lead actress, Carice van Houten, already agreeing to star in a theatrical production. The theatre company filed a lawsuit against the film's producers, demanding compensation for the postponement of the announced play, and received 60,000 euros in damages.
• The role of the resistance leader Gerben Kuipers was initially supposed to be played by Gijs Scholten van Aschat, but due to the forced delay in film production, the actor became busy with a theatrical production. In the search for a suitable replacement, the director turned his attention to Derek de Lint, with whom he had worked 28 years earlier on the filming of 'The Soldier of Orange'.
• Many members of the film crew had to wait over a year to receive the fees they were owed for their work, as the producers had spent all the funds before production was fully completed.
• The most large-scale scene in the film, the liberation of The Hague, was filmed with the involvement of more than 1200 extras.
• Simultaneously with the film, on September 1, 2006, its novelization was released, written by Dutch writer Laurenz Abbink Spuink. The book was accompanied by illustrations in the form of frames from the film and an afterword by director Paul Verhoeven and screenwriter Gerard Soeteman.