Still: The North - Bart Schrijver

Bart Schrijver’s The North is extraordinary for many reasons. Not only does it deliver a searingly honest, highly emotional, portrait of a friendship in decline (and its potential for revival), it is all set against the sumptuous backdrop of the Scottish Highlands through which our two heroes, Chris and Lluis, relentlessly hike. 

What’s more, the film was made out of necessity when Schrijver realised that if he and professional partners Arnold Janssen (sales) and Tom Holscher (marketing) didn’t turn over a profit soon, then their Tuesday Studio would soon go out of business. (The North is a film made very much outside the usual national and regional funding mechanisms).

Schrijver is as entrepreneurial a filmmaker as you could ever expect to meet. Together with Janssen and Holscher, he releases homemade content through Tuesday Studio to a subscriber base of approximately 20,000. After completion of The North, partner Janssen sent a copy to The Guardian in the UK, who gave it a 4-star rating, in the process naming it “the ultimate hiking film,” which immediately piqued the interest of international distributors. 

Together with Danielle Raaphorst of Incredible Film, Janssen then brokered theatrical sales to Australia and New Zealand, the UK and Ireland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Austria, Switzerland and Hungary. The company furthermore released the film in The Netherlands where it has run for the past 11 weeks, amassing ticket sales north of 120,000.

All of this emboldened Schrijver to submit the film for the European Film Awards. Now it is on the shortlist.

The North is in part autobiographical. Schrijver is, himself, a keen hiker who, on a mammoth 3,000-km trek through New Zealand, experienced an overload of self-analysis, self-doubt and catharsis similar to that which friends Lluis and Chris undergo in the film. 

On the face of it, the experience for the two men should be wondrous, an opportunity to escape their normal lives and elevate their sense of self, while breathing in lungfuls of clear air and drinking from brooks babbling with crystal water. But such solitude leads also to the deepest of reflection and analysis, and the strains and concerns of everyday existence are not so easy to dismiss.

Workaholic Chris can’t quite let go of his supposed indispensability back in the office, while the seemingly laid-back Lluis harbours a secret about his health, unaware that there are emotional support mechanisms available if only he would turn to them. “Chris has all these responsibilities, but I don't think he ever thought that life could also be different,” says director Schrijver. “And Lluis is inside this cage of ‘me against the world.’”

In reality, the two old friends hardly know each other at all, despite their backslapping and protestations to the contrary, and it is only towards the film’s end that their friendship takes on a greater sense of authenticity, depth and understanding. 

What is fascinating is how true revelation comes via the film’s secondary characters. Chris only hears about Lluis’s testicular cancer scare when Lluis divulges this information to a stranger in a bothy (a rest hut). Likewise, Chris has a light bulb realisation of how life can/should be lived after he meets a man who, at the age of 70, has only recently found happiness, in the Highlands with the woman he loves, after 55 years of work, 5 days a week. 

Scotland is a perfect location, and obviously appealing to international distributors and audiences alike. But it was also one of the few remaining places in Europe which offered free access to roam, camp and shoot. “There's not a lot of places in Europe where you can do that. There's Scandinavia and there's Scotland. You have the inner lands of Iceland and you have mountains in the Alps above a certain altitude - but that's kind of it,” says Schrijver.

An enormous boon to all involved in the film has been the higher remuneration as a result of the film’s stratospheric success so far, the director further points out.

So does Schrijver intend to apply this business model to future projects. Of course, he replies. “Tuesday Studio is about having the freedom to do anything you want. The scripts that I write - no one else reads. I don't have to show anything to anyone. And I think having that freedom is priceless,” he signs off.

The North is written and directed by Bart Schrijver and produced by Tuesday Studio. Sales are handled by Incredible Film. Watch the trailer: