http://gooseberry.blender.org/production-update-10-minutes-release-in-july/
Can you give it a more descriptive title then ‘thats sad’?
It is a bummer, but its for valid reasons why they did not get the funding (big international crew, not much relevance to the nation, massive amounts of funding already & not a short, not a feature film, somewhere in the middle)
Disappointing in some ways, but not necessarily sad.
I do find some of the rules for national funding (for art and media) frustrating. The idea of something having to suit a specific culture based on region ignores the global village we now are living in and also forces art into a box (often into cliches, specifically). I find that the Blender Institute being solidly nestled and part of the Netherlands has the benefit in itself, whether the director is Dutch and there is enough Dutch content or not. It does bring revenue and attention to the region, especially with a spotlight on the 3d arts community. I think it is safe enough to say (from my own experiences at least) that most people stumble upon Blender (in the recent years) through the open projects, and those people end up donating funds back into the institute (artists, and employees, Dutch or otherwise). Also, if they become interested enough, they might even use it as an excuse to visit the institute in Amsterdam. Projects like this have the opportunity to build up even more arts and culture - build up a production and arts hub for 3d in the NL.
We have the same problem here, unfortunately. Stories have to reflect history and culture of this country or you are out of luck… it’s unfortunate really. Lot’s of missed opportunities to build the industry and get exposure on a global scale.
Anyhow, as I posted in other places, I actually don’t mind the idea of an episodic take on this plot, however I would fear that leaving the ending open to be continued in an episode to episode basis might weaken the story and climaxes. Also, often “tv shows” get cancelled without reaching conclusions, and I would fear this for this project… because truthfully, I really like what I know so far about the story and where it could go, and how it could possibly end.
Hopefully there is room for other funding and another crowd funding attempt could bring this back to being a feature to reach the original goal… however, if in the worst case it ends up being produced in a per episode basis… I will take that.
Hi doublebishop and B-Rae,
sorry was my first thought about it.
you are right…
I currently can`t support gooseberry and blender and development a lot and that news made me sad. I realy hoped the whole gooseberry project did not end after that few months and finished somehow. But I mean there was and is so much progress and… No time to be sad 
Well from the get go there was a bit of pushback against the approach to GB. While I am not surprised by this, I think they are probably correct in their refusal to fund. Its not something they can showcase to the world as being from the Netherlands, which I think is the entire point of such funding. They need to reward the netherland based projects/films the most. Blender and GB is just too global in scope.
Maybe the story should have been about Vikings and toothless dragons… =P
Actually, speaking as a Dutch person, it’s more likely that the international team was the issue. Esp. with a director that is French(no offence Mathieu). I don’t think the story was an issue. Otherwise half of the HAFF could be cancelled.
Why should a national found inside the EU not support international projects. Dont know.. we are one world. Thats what we are or better what politics tells us. Whats the problem with that? Better to do such projects than droping bombs or cheating each other… I know thats kind of thinking is a bit strange and dont take it too serious ;). But I realy dont understand the problem and I also think and believe that the national found for art and media is realy important for international low budget art projects… not like hollywood and the big industry… Good to have it!
@ Therahedwig what is HAFF?
Well for one thing, organizations like the Netherlands Film Fund usually have plainly stated goals, such as ‘supporting the film industry in the Netherlands’. If your director is a Frenchman, the team is all over the world and not even the story has anything to do with the Netherlands, it’s difficult to support an argument that it’s a Dutch film just because the BI office happens to be in Amsterdam.
I wonder who planned the Gooseberry project because it’s been a train wreck since inception.
Isn’t there some animal specifically connected to dutch fables/folklore/culture? it could become the main character of part two.
Nah, there’s the fox Reynarde, but that’s more belgian, and on top of that there’s french versions of that tale too.
The Netherlands is really small and while it does have interesting folklore, like the goatriders, or a gazillion of werewolves, and a lot of stuff happening in the seventeenth century… you’re better off making a horror movie when it comes to those kind of things. Modern Dutch culture is a little difficult to grasp as well, and not very international friendly: We’re very callous. We get called the Americans of Europe by the Belgians, but even then, Americans are more reserved and have rules like ‘no cussing on television’, or ‘no discussing of politics and religion at the dinner table’, both which the Dutch don’t care much about.
Not sad, not disappointed either, just shows a common political fact: Gooseberry is an open source international project which is not in any national interest today (at least in EU - Fortress Europe).
Maybe they should try their luck with Eurimages, since the focus of that fund is european co-production, and they allow a certain percentage of total funding of the project to come from outside EU. Other conditions for elligibility may be harder to meet, though. Might be worth checking, anyway.
Alternately, they could also have a look at funding possiblities within the “Creative Europe” programme, which seems to have a stronger emphasis on cross cultural and cross border projects and cooperation both within and outside the EU.
If they could secure funding from one of these, Netherlands Film Fund or some other national film fund might start regarding the project with other eyes and hop on the bandwagon.
It has nothing to do with Fortress Europe, National film funds exist in a lot of countries and the usually created to fund and promote movies from their own respective countries to preserve and maintain their culture. The are billions of people speaking English, Hindi and Chinese, hundred of millions speaking French, Spanish, Portuguese.
I seriously doubt there is more than 25 million people speaking Dutch as there mother tongue in the world. Would Pixar, Warner Brothers or FOX go out of their way to make a movie in Dutch, Finnish or Swedish (excluding dubbing)?
People in many smaller nations usually want to see movies about them and their culture usually in their own languages. Because of small populations movies making is not usually economically viable so these funds exists to support there small local industries.
I am a bit worried about this movie visually it looks really nice and has some top notch animation at least from what I have seen from watching the weeklies but it is now sitting in the weird position of essentially been an extend trailer to a movie that won’t get made and is not in any way a cohesive and self contained story.
A bit of nitpicking here: Chinese is indeed the most natively spoken language in the planet, but adding up its main variants (mandarin, cantonese, min, wu…) you get a little more than 1.1 billion of people, not “billions”. As for the other languages, Spanish is the second most natively spoken language in the world with a little more than 400 million native speakers, wich is more than either English (3rd with approx. 350 million) or Hindi (4th with aprox. 300 million). French, by contrast, is far below the 100 million mark.
A different case might be made for English as a widely spoken language by non native speakers, as it’s most probably the most learned second language in the world, hence its de facto status as a lingua franca for business and entertainment everywhere. That, more than the number of native speakers, is the main reason why you won’t see Pixar or Dreamworks produce anything in any language that is not English (other than foreign dubbing for overseas releases, as you said before), at least not in the near future.
The Book of Life was simultaneously dubbed in English and Spanish, and seems to be doing fine in international box office (almost 100 mill according to Box Office Mojo, wich is very nice for 50 mill budget). It wasn’t produced by a large studio (although it is being destributed by FOX), so it remains to be seen if future productions by larger studios will follow this multinlingual/multicultural road.
In any case, as I said before, a more feasible way to get public funding for a transnational project would be to try and get EU funding through any of their paneuropean cultural programmes. Many european filmmakers have used these for decades. Eurimages, for example, has funded at least three films by Lars Von Trier that I know of (maybe more): Europa, Breaking the Waves and Dogville.
@JJT
Nicely explained, thanks.
@tm
I see it as unique project… art knows no boundaries. It’s an idea of a man, for sake of all.
Gooseberry project has given us all (&dutch) much much more than what you describe. Among showing an open mind, open culture, open organization, economics, politics… a good multinational example?
Primarily i see it as a great human achievement in which any & every would be able to enjoy. Can learn, share… 
… uh, BTW he’s Dutch… and it’s done in Netherlands. Anywhere else as i see, not possible.
Though maybe, come to think of it, is conservative mind not liking/nominating such acts among their citizen. So yeah, no surprise.