In The Mole Agent, Sergio is the least likely spy you’ll ever meet. Octogenarian, highly dapper and in complete control of his mental faculties, he is recruited by a detective agency to investigate the case of a care home resident, Sonja, whose daughter feels is being mistreated. So our hero goes undercover to investigate, replete with Bond-type gadgets, but in the process finds himself the focus of much interest, some of it romantic. What’s more, he comes to develop a deep affection for his fellow residents. Little by little he also begins to uncover the true reason for the pain that Sonja suffers.

“Maite is a super gifted and talented director with a unique language - what more does a producer need?” asks Volya Films’ Denis Vaslin of the director he first encountered when he was sitting on the selection committee of IDFA Bertha Fund (then called The Jan Vrijman Fund) back in 2011. When he read the proposal for her project Tea Time, (which went on to premiere internationally at IDFA 2014) he successfully argued for its development funding.

His interest in Alberdi was thus piqued and he remained in close touch, eventually co-producing her The Grown-Ups in 2016, which world-premiered at IDFA and further selected for 100+ festivals.

But when it came to financing The Mole Agent, for some reason Vaslin hit a brick wall, at least initially. He was turned down by some of the French power houses (to whom he made overtures through his Paris-based Mandra Films) and confesses, even then, to telling funding nay-sayers, ‘if you don't support it you are going to miss a ticket to the Oscars.”

Support was again given, however, by IDFA Bertha Fund Europe, and after the project won the Best Central Pitch at IDFA Forum 2017, the Netherlands Film Fund came on board. “I was very grateful for that,” says Vaslin. “We got funding from two directions and that was how we could be on the project from the Netherlands with obligations of spending.”

Music was written by Dutch Vincent van Warmerdam and the film was edited in the Netherlands. The late, great Menno Boerema was slated to edit, but he passed away a few weeks before he was due to start work. So Vaslin organised the cut, all the time gaining feedback from top production and director talent, the whole process overseen by Amsterdam-based editor and coach Diego Gutierrez.

So what did Vaslin make of the first cut that he saw? “It was extremely strong. There was already this humour, these slightly kitsch images that I personally love,” he responds. He was reminded of what turned him on to the project in the first place. “When she first pitched it to me I was ‘yeah, I would love to be on this film’,” he remembers. “The mole entering the old person’s home, and knowing Maite’s ability to observe communities, I knew it would make a great film, which it became. In Tea Time she was already observing ‘third age people’, let’s say, and I could see again how she has this bitter sweet gaze.”

Of course, Vaslin had entered the project even before the director had decided on the magical Sergio as her lead, whose casting formed the film’s hilarious opening sequence. “Maite is young, very strong and directs with no hesitation,” Vaslin underlines, and is representative of an evolving and “super rich” documentary aesthetic that Dutch filmmakers could do well to emulate, he suggests.

There is no doubt that right now Alberdi has the documentary world at her feet, and will be in great demand from festivals, streamers and co-creators well into the future. Will Vaslin be looking to partner with her on future works? 

“I would love to co-produce another film with Maite,” he answers. “But I don't know, after an Oscar nomination, I would say maybe she will not need us. I don't mean that in a nasty way. It’s just, that’s life.”

“But if she asks me, I will walk blindly into it,” he ends.