It’s 2003. This is gonna be the year in which we will shoot my film. On my way back home, after spending New Year’s night up in the north, I take a detour to visit the boys who are spending the night in Zwolle (a small provincial town) queuing to get a stamp. This stamp we need to start a CV (commanditaire vennootschap) a Special Partnership which creates the possibilities to finance the film with the help of Dutch tax money. But to get this permission you have to queue and that’s what we did. Or we…
My producer rent a camper and Sjors and Brian queued all night. They were number 4 in the queue. When I arrived the atmosphere was very pleasant. A row of camper-buses in a dark suburb of closed offices in the outskirts of Zwolle. Some men hang around in the rain and the winter cold chatting to pass the time.
The first man made a system to be sure that he who was first stays first. Brian send me SMS’s during the night. He wrote me that more and more people arrived. Half way the night some boys arrived who didn’t want to share food or drinks, perhaps afraid to get poison in the hunt for the stamp! An hour before the office opened his doors a employee came outside to give everybody an official number.
And at 9 o’clock I got this SMS: Mission accomplished. No casualities. All primary and secundary targets hit. R&B returning to base.
I hope we fulfil the conditions. We will know that in a few weeks.