LevelK Boards Oscar Winner Mike Van Diem’s ‘Our Girls’ (EXCLUSIVE)

LevelK has boarded international sales for Oscar-winning director Mike van Diem’s upcoming Dutch feature film “Our Girls,” currently in post-production.

Van Diem’s debut feature film “Character” (Karakter), a dramatic crime thriller, won the Academy Award for best foreign language film at the 70th Academy Awards, and was released in the U.S. by Sony Pictures Classics. Van Diem also previously won a Student Academy Award with the student film “Alaska.”

“Our Girls” is set during an idyllic holiday in the Austrian Alps, as the long-standing friendship between two couples spins out of control. It is a loose adaptation of Dutch novel “We Doen Wat We Kunnen” by Lykele Muus, published in 2019.

For years, two couples have shared the perfect holiday home in the Alps and enjoyed each other’s company every summer. But when their teenage daughters are involved in a shocking accident, their long-standing friendship is put to a new, unthinkable test.

As each couple works to uncover the truth and save their own daughter, long buried tensions and uncomfortable truths erupt, forcing them to abandon any pretence of decency and to question all of their certainties as spouses, parents and friends.

“Our Girls” marks Van Diem’s return to dramatic filmmaking following cross culture comedy “Tulipani, Love, Honour and a Bicycle” (2017) and romantic comedy “The Surprise” (2015).

Van Diem commented: “After two comedies the time felt right to return to making a more serious film. ‘Our Girls’ is a suspenseful, heart wrenching drama, but at the same time moviegoers will be pleased to find out that I have not lost my sense of humor either.“

Derk-Jan Warrink and Koji Nelissen, producers for Keplerfilm, added: “Mike van Diem has crafted a sharp portrait of human emotion and relationships in a richly cinematic setting; a film that moved us deeply from the start.”

“Our Girls” is produced by Keplerfilm and Nuts & Bolts Film Company in co-production with Schubert and A Private View and was supported by the Netherlands Film Fund, Netherlands Film Production Incentive, Eurimages, Creative Europe MEDIA, ÖFI +, Cine Tirol Film Commission, Flanders Audiovisual Fund (VAF), Tax Shelter of the Belgian Federal Government, and BNP Paribas Fortis Film Finance.

The film’s ensemble cast is led by Dutch standouts Thekla Reuten (the BBC’s “Hidden and Restless,” “In Bruges,” “The American,” “Rosenstrasse”), Fedja van Huêt (“Speak No Evil,” Amazon Prime’s “Maxton Hall—The World Between Us”), and Noortje Herlaar (TV series “De 12 van Oldenheim,” “The Hitman’s Bodyguard”), and Belgian actor Valentijn Dhaenens (“Girl” by Lukas Dhont, “The Misfortunates” by Felix van Groeningen).

The film was shot by Austrian cinematographer Martin Gschlacht (“The Devil’s Bath,” “Club Zero,” “Alpha,” “Revanche”).