Tagline: Out of darkness comes light.
Claire lives with her wealthy adopted parents in a luxurious and isolated house in the woods. She discovers a wounded and bleeding boy her age in her family’s garden shed. The boy is a young drug courier from Afghanistan; shot and wounded after serving his purpose as human packing material.
Claire decides to keep the boy a secret. He slowly recovers under her care; and they fall in love. When the drug dealers return and Claire’s family is due to move back to the city; they decide to flee; though Claire finds it difficult to outrun her past as an abandoned child.
“Moonlight” relates the story of the teenage Claire, who discovers a wounded and bleeding boy her age in her family’s garden shed. The boy is a young drug courier from Afghanistan, shot and wounded after serving his purpose as human packing material. Claire decides to keep the boy a secret. He slowly recovers under her care. They fall in love. When things get too difficult for them, they decide to flee. On the run from criminals they live their lives in the fast lane.
Director’s statement
Moonlight is a powerful and moving story of two children, each from a different culture and social environment. Together they live their lives in the fast lane. They fall in love, go on the run, symbolically marry, make love and finally save another person’s life.
When I first read the script, I immediately thought of the atmosphere in ‘Blue Velvet’ by David Lynch. In both cases the stories are about a heightened sense of reality. It is a sensitive coming-of-age film, with the elements of a romantic thriller.
The two children have created a world of their own and communicate in their own special way. This offered me the chance to create a style that encapsulated their own world. If you wanted to give that style a name, ‘heightened reality’ might be a good term to describe it.
Although moving, Moonlight isn’t meant to be viewed as a romantic film. It is, however, a film that makes one think, a film that is poignant and that causes a change in the viewer.
Above all, it is a story about the age in which we live. It says something about the society we live in, the way people deal with each other, the way in which the system deals with people it deems to be of little value or worth.
Working with these two young actors has been a very special experience. We trusted each other completely and therefore were able to obtain a high level performance. What I think makes the film so moving is that the viewer is able to relate so completely to the children. I’m very happy with Moonlight and proud to be able to present my fourth film to the public.
About the Production
Casting
We knew that the casting of the two13-year-old leads would be crucial for the success of the film. We completely ignored well-meaning advice to use 16-year olds for the parts. In order to enhance the authenticity of the film we were determined to use 13-year-old actors. It took us two years to complete the casting, during which time we took our search to the Benelux, France, Germany, England and even Brazil. We saw hundreds of actors. It was only last year when I was a member of the jury for the Netherlands Film Festival that I saw Laurien van den Broeck in ‘Mariken’.
That’s when I knew we wouldn’t have to look any further. What talent. What a natural! Paula was also enthusiastic and together we traveled twice to Belgium to see Laurien and convince her to play the part of Claire in Moonlight, and not choose either of the other two films that were being offered to her at the time. During filming, Laurien was exactly the same age as Claire in the script, which meant that she was concerned about the same things. But Laurien is not just a child-star who is merely playing herself. She is a serious and experienced actress who is capable of completely entering into a role.
Now that we had a Belgian female lead, we also wanted to a have a Belgian father in order to enhance the plausibility of the story. And who better to play the role of the understanding psychiatrist, who can’t quite connect with the fantasies and sensitivity of his daughter, than Johan Leysen?
The young drug courier turned out to be the most difficult role to cast. For Kemna casting, we threw out all the stops and considered candidates from the most exotic countries only to finally choose Hunter Bussemaker, who happens to live around the corner in a houseboat on river Amstel. Of all the candidates, he was by far the most capable of breathing life into the difficult role of the quiet, but certainly not passive, drug courier.
Andrew Howard was suggested to us by our British co-producers from the Spice Factory. They had just made a film with him, ‘Mr. In-Between’, for which Andrew won a prize in Tokyo for best actor. While on the plane back from Tokyo, a colleague, Glenn Durfort, gave us a chance here in Amsterdam to see Andrew in the film ‘Shooters’. We were immediately won over. Andrew would be perfect for the role of the ruthless, but also tormented gang leader.
Jemma Redgrave as the mother, who too-enthusiastically reacts to her daughter’s first menstruation, and, as a concert pianist, has very little time for her daughter, was a good suggestion from Job Gosschalk.
Language
Moonlight is a film carried by imagery over dialogue. After Claire tries out several different languages on the young drug courier, they learn to understand each other in an invented language. The little dialogue that occurs is in English (Claire with her parents), with a few phrases in French, German and Luxemburgish. The gang leaders speak Russian and Serbo-Croatian, but this dialogue occurs expressly in the background.
Location
Moonlight takes place in the forests of Luxembourg. Through our choice of languages and actors we have tried to make it appear as if the action takes place in Belgium and Luxembourg, but in fact the story could take place anywhere in Western Europe. In the accompanying article from the Herald Tribune, it appears that minor children used to transport drugs in their bodies (by swallowing drugs encased in condoms) is a current problem in the United States.
The choice of Director
Partly because there is so little dialogue, Moonlight is about expressive acting. I consider Paula to be one of the best directors of actors in the Netherlands. In addition, both Carel Donck and I expected that her experience as a mother and as a director of young actors in previous films, would enable her to deal in a balanced way with the sensitive relationship between the two leads. Fortunately, Paula was just as enthusiastic about Carel’s script as I was and in the last few years we were able to produce Moonlight in the ideal three-way relationship of writer-producer-director, working together as a close team.
Music
Moonlight features music by renown Dutch composer Fons Merkies as well as contemporary songs from British and Dutch bands as diverse as Gomez, Fu Manchu, Front 242 and Yulduz. Music supervisor was Bob Last (‘Orlando’, ‘Backbeat’, ‘Chocolat’).
Wardrobe
Wardrobe was designer by Jany Temime who also designed the costumes for ‘Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire’, ‘Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason’ and of two Oscar-winning films (‘Character’ and ‘Antonia’s Line’).
The Rest of the Crew
Moonlight is cameraman Guido van Gennep’s first feature film. He had previously delivered some beautiful work in short films including ‘De Tijdreiziger’ (The Time Traveler) and ‘Het Spaanse Paard’ (The Spanish Horse). Editor Sander Vos and composer Fons Merkies are included in the list of personal favorites of both the director and the producer. We gave a lot of thought to the choice of sound designer.
After viewing a rough cut of ‘Moonlight’ the impressive team from ‘Sexy Beast’ of designer Jeremy Price and mixer Tim Alban signed on.
Production notes provided by Indican Films.
Moonlight
Starring: Laurien Van Den Broeck, Jemma Redgrave, Andrea Howard, Hunter Bussemaker, Johan Leysen
Directed by: Paula van der Oest
Produced by: Emjay Rechsteiner
Release Date: December 9, 2005
Running Time: 91 minutes
MPAA Rating: Not Rated.
Studio: Indican Films
Box Office Totals
Domestic: $51,570 (100.0%)
Foreign: —
Total: $51,570 (Worldwide)