ANNEMARIE VAN DE MOND

Annemarie was born in Haaksbergen in 1962. She attended Drama school in Maastricht where she graduated in 1989. After her education, she worked for many years as an assistant director and script supervisor for many Dutch films and TV series. But also with various international productions including films with Wes Anderson and Joel Schumacher.

From 1999 Annemarie started directing her own films and series. She directed episodes of drama series such as SMERIS, MEIDEN VAN DE HERENGRACHT and DE MANNENTESTER, the short film BEET and the television films HANNAHANNAH, TAARTMAN and GEWOON VRIENDEN, which received various international prizes. JACKIE AND OOPJEN is her first feature movie.

Director’s statement

“I love films that tell us something about the complexity of life. Heart-warming films in which people lovingly stumble through life, while, despite of all the odds, not losing hope and faith, sometimes even against their own better judgment. 

Jackie & Oopjen is about an unusual friendship between a girl and a painting. Jackie and Oopjen are complete opposites. Jackie is a mess. A tough city girl. If someone has a problem, she wants to solve it and she tends to take too much on her little shoulders.

Oopjen, on the other hand, follows her impulses. Because she comes from a different time period, she doesn't worry about what people think of her, she doesn't know them anyway. But even though Oopjen causes many problems (which Jackie then has to solve), Jackie now finally has a real girlfriend, for the first time in her life.

Jackie & Oopjen is the kind of film that I would like to watch in the cinema. The story is compelling, funny, adventurous, strange, magical and ultimately moving. On the surface it is the story of Jackie, who experiences all sorts of adventures with 17th century Oopjen. However the disappearance of Oopjen's sister also has an allegorical significance for Jackie's relationship with her mother Mouna. The moral of the story is: you have to keep an eye on your loved ones, on the ones closest to you, otherwise you might just lose them. Oopjen has lost sight of her sister because she did not keep a close eye on her, and the same thing is about to happen to Jackie and Mouna, if they aren’t gonna start paying more attention to each other.

I immensely enjoyed making this cheerful and adventurous detective with these wonderful and inspiring actors. Together we tried to make it a detective on two levels, a film with a deeper layer, so that adults can also enjoy watching it and will resonate with it. A film about the desire for safety versus the desire for adventure and about taking new steps in your life.

For me this film also proves that art has the ability, throughout all ages, to touch people and to move them forward. There won't be a 12-year-old who believes that someone can step out of a painting, but you can tell them the story about dreaming and imagining.

That says something about the power and vitality of art, something that is much needed in people's lives. An encounter with a work of art can be an adventure that will stay with you for the rest of your life.”