The Debut (1977 film)

Het Debuut
Directed by	Nouchka van Brakel
Written by	Nouchka van Brakel Carel Donck
Produced by	René Solleveld Matthijs van Heijningen
Starring	Marina de Graaf
Cinematography	Theo van de Sande
Edited by	August Verschueren
Music by	Ron Westerbeek
Release date	18 May 1977 (1977-05-18)
Running time	94 minutes
Country	Netherlands
Language	Dutch

Het Debuut ('The Debut') is a 1977 Dutch drama film based on a Hester Albach's novel and directed by Nouchka van Brakel. ^{[1] [2] [3] [4]}

Plot summary

A 14-year-old girl and a 41-year-old friend of her father's fall in love, and soon their relationship grows into a sexual one as well. For some time all is happy, but then the tension grows too much, because of the secrecy and frustration of being the lover of a married man, and because she feels he starts to treat her too much like a child instead of a lover.

Cast

• Marina de Graaf as Carolien
• Gerard Cox as Hugo
• Pleuni Touw as Rita/Hugo's wife
• Kitty Courbois as Anne/Carolien's mother
• Dolf de Vries as Dr. Peter/Carolien's father
• Wendy Ferwerda as Susan
• Sandrien van Brakel as Tanja/Carolien's schoolmate
• Pieter Fleury as Jacques

Production

News of the film version began to pick up steam in November 1976 when De Telegraph ran a full-page article on the film's casting. Nouchka van Brakel wanted an unknown for the lead, though. It was essential that the part not be played by a recognizable actress. A week before Christmas, 1976, De Telegraph announced 17-year-old Marina de Graaf as the actress who Van Brakel had cast. ^[5]

Reception

"Het Debuut was one of the top three Dutch films of 1977." ^[6] The film, "Nouchka's first full - length film, (is) a confident justification of her belief that a woman can render her sex much more precisely on screen than a male director can", according to Dutch Cinema: An Illustrated History. ^[7]

References

1. Robinson, David (1986). The Illustrated History of the Cinema. Orbis. ISBN   978-0-85613-754-9.
2. Verstraten, Peter (30 March 2021). Dutch Post-war Fiction Film through a Lens of Psychoanalysis. Amsterdam University Press. ISBN   978-90-485-5172-9.
3. Vermeulen, Ella (19 October 2022). "Eye Amsterdam eert powervrouw Nouchka van Brakel | Nouveau". www.nouveau.nl (in Dutch). Retrieved 6 June 2024.
4. Waardenburg, André (1 June 2016). "Nouchka van Brakel: A Female Point of View". Filmkrant (in Dutch). Retrieved 6 June 2024.
5. "Nouchka van Brakel's Het Debuut (The Debut)". nostalgiakinky.com. Retrieved 4 June 2024.
6. Nelmes, Jill; Selbo, Jule (29 September 2015). Women Screenwriters: An International Guide. Springer. ISBN   978-1-137-31237-2.
7. Cowie, Peter (1979). Dutch Cinema: An Illustrated History. Tantivy Press. ISBN   978-0-498-02425-2.

External links

• Het Debuut at IMDb