Verhoeven works with audience for Tricked

Basic Instinct and Robocop director Paul Verhoeven is back in Cannes, with what he has been calling his “14th and a half” feature.

Tricked, handled in the market by Amsterdam-based FCCE, is a steamy 50-minute thriller full of business skulduggery, sex and deception. It stars Peter Blok (Black Book) and Ricky Koole. The difference from Verhoeven’s other features is that the film’s storyline was partially created by the general public.

The new film came into being through The Entertainment Experience, a TV show that FCCE producers Rene Mioch and Justus Verkerk hatched last year. The public wrote script suggestions and submitted their own three minute movies. Verhoeven drew on this user-generated material to create his own movie. This was scripted by Kim van Kooten, a leading Dutch scriptwriter.

Now, with cinemas and festivals eager to show Tricked, FCCE is at work on a 35 minute documentary about Verhoeven that can show alongside the director’s new movie, thereby creating a full feature length experience.

Earlier this week, it was announced that Verhoeven’s more traditional forthcoming feature The Hidden Force (De Stille Kracht) was to receive €1.8 million through the Dutch “Telescoop” initiative.