Colette Bothof, Marjolein Bierens – Summer #TGLFF30

May 5, 2015

Colette Bothof, Marjolein Bierens - Summer #TGLFF30 fredfilmradio

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Colette Bothof / Marjolein Bierens – director / screenwriter – Summer (Zomer)

FRED’s Chiara Nicoletti meets director Colette Bothof and writer Marjolein Bierens right after the premiere screening of their film Summer (Zomer), in competition at the 30th Torino Gay & Lesbian Film Festival.

Summer, based on a theatre play, is a coming of age story, set in an undefined time in the Netherlands. It focuses mostly on the love story between Anne and Lena and their search for a place in life.

Adolescence lasts one ” summer” and they will eventually become the adults their parents weren’t able to be.

SUMMER (ZOMER): It’s a hot, sultry summer in a small village in the south of Holland, surrounded by seemingly endless fields and meadows and dominated by the power plant with its cables and pylons: all the people in the village work there. The atmosphere is suffocating, not only because of the blazing hot summer. Country-life proves to be same all over the world: there is always the same attitude of silent complicity and self-righteous moralism that covers up imploding male chauvinism, violence and repression.

16-year-old Anne finds this atmosphere unbearable and feels like an outsider, caught between her need to belong and her need for freedom. Her life revolves around her family and a group of friends of the same age, who, just like her, are trying to find their own road to adulthood.

Freedom begins for Anne with the arrival of Lena, an independent, uninhibited girl who comes from the city, riding a motorbike, dressed in leathers.

Summer is a liberating coming-of-age story, based on the play by Marjolein Bierens, who also wrote the script for this screen adaptation.