_{Still: Wolf}

Wolf isn’t the typical Dutch festival film. It’s a bruising action-drama set against the backcloth of kickboxing and organised crime.

Majid (Marwan Kenzari) is a martial arts fighter from an impoverished inner city background. As his career develops and his reputation for ferocity inside and outside of the ring grows, he is thrown together with some brutal associates.

Taihattu knew that casting the lead role would be crucial to the success of his film. He needed someone who could not only act but who would also be convincing in the ring.

“We’ve been friends for a couple of years now and during the filming of my previous feature Rabat, we started discussing doing a boxing film,” the director reflects on his choice of Kenzari to star in Wolf. The actor did all his own stunts. He trained with professional kick boxers. His opponents in the film are likewise hardened professionals.

“When I had completed editing Rabat, Marwan started training very intensely and I started writing the script and setting up the production with (producer) Julius Ponten. After a year and a half of training and eating a million chickens, not only did Marwan look like a kickboxer but he actually became one!”

Yes, the director acknowledges, he is a kickboxing fan himself. This quickly growing sport is seen by outsiders as being especially brutal. However, the cognoscenti point to its grace and subtlety – and the way it brings together elements from a range of different fighting disciplines.

Taihattu, who also describes himself as a big admirer of traditional boxing movies, follows Martin Scorsese’s example in Raging Bull (1980) by shooting in black and white.

“I don’t even think that I would have gone into making movies without Taxi Driver, Raging Bull and my favourite, Mean Streets,” ponders the filmmaker over Scorsese’s big influence on his career. “But I also love the work of Wim Wenders. From the newer directors, I admire Jacques Audiard and Nicolas Winding Refn, not only their films but the way they move in the world of cinema, the way their career has evolved and the way they work their actors.”

As for the black and white, Taihattu, knew exactly the look he wanted. He wasn’t after the sleek monochrome you often see in other films shot in the format. He was determined that the images in Wolf would be grainy, full textured and naturalistic.

“We scouted for grey and gritty neighbourhoods as well,” Taihattu recalls. “In the end, we were very happy to shoot the whole film in Kanaleneiland in Utrecht. This is a kind of infamous neighbourhood where people advised us not to shoot, but during the two months Marwan, myself and (Director of Photography) Lennart Verstegen lived there we encountered nothing but hospitality, and we made a lot of new friends.”

The references to the criminal underworld come from stories the director read in newspapers. “All the crime stuff is based on actual events,” he states. The character of Majid may be fictional but the director insists there are thousands of alienated youngsters like him, just “struggling to survive and feeling left behind in the Dutch suburbs.”

When it came to financing Wolf, which has recently been picked up for international sales by US-based XYZ Films, Taihattu was given a big boost by the success of his previous film Rabat. He was already being called “the voice of a new generation.” The director was again working with production company, Habbekrats. When he entered Wolf for the Netherlands Film Fund competition for new talent (De Oversteek), he was able to secure a sizeable chunk of the budget for the film.

Not that Taihattu sees Wolf and Rabat as direct companion pieces. “Rabat was about friendship, this is about betrayal,” explains the director of the distinction between the two films. “Rabat was about the summer and the warmth of colours, this is a black and white movie, set in winter. But, most of all, Rabat was about a young guy who had to choose between two worlds that keep pulling him in. Majid is a guy pushed away by both these worlds.”

With Wolf ready to be shown to audiences in San Sebastian and the Netherlands, Taihattu is already busy hatching a new project. This one will have more of a historical flavour. It is to be set in Indonesia in 1948, just as the Dutch colonial era was coming to an end. The film will explore the circumstances behind an extremely bloody war that Dutch historians have long ignored and that isn’t even described as such in the history books.

The story has a very personal resonance for the director. “My grandfather is from Indonesia and his father was a sergeant for the Dutch army in this war.”

There are no more details to reveal other than that actor Marwan Kenzari, fast becoming a kind of muse to Taihattu, will again feature in an important role.

_{Jim Taihuttu}

Wolf Director: Jim Taihuttu Script: Jim Taihuttu
Production: Habbekrats Sales: XYZ Films