Every year in May, the small village of Lievelde in the Dutch countryside is turned upside down. Everybody is seized by parade fever. Wool parade fever, to be precise. While other villages and towns have flower or fruit parades, Lievelde has the largest wool parade in the world!
The wool parade is popular with the youth in Lievelde and for months, everyone goes out of their way to win the coveted first prize. Between the girls’ team “We’re cooking” and the boys’ team “That’s what we call green energy!” who are all in the eighth grade, the rivalry is huge; they are both determined to beat the other group. On whatsapp, evil plans are dreamt up to reveal the secrets of the other group’s float. What started off as fun seems to lead up to a true “battle of the sexes”. Who will win the cup on the big day, the boys or the girls?
NCRV Dokument Junior / 15 min.
WOOLFEVER was screened at the following international festivals:
CINEKID Amsterdam, October 2013 DOCVILLE, Leuven, May 2014
GO SHORT Nijmegen, April 2014 Psarokokalo Int. Short FF, Greece July 2014
Vision du Reel, NYON, April 2014 KUKI Int. Short FF for Children, Berlijn Nov. 2014
Int. Short FF Oberhausen, May 2014
DVD
Director
Astrid Bussink
Astrid Bussink studied fine art at the Academy of fine Arts, AKI, Enschede (BA) in the Netherlands and her Master in film at the Edinburgh College of Art in Scotland. During this Master she shot her award winning documentary ‘The Angelmakers’ (First Appearance Award IDFA, Little Stamp award, ZagrebDOX, Best short Documentary, Dokufest, nomination Grierson Award and more). After this she made the short films Rückenlage / Upside Down ( Best Short Experimental film at Vermont International Film Festival, nominated Silver Cub, IDFA 2006), The 9 lives of my car (a.o. Dutch Filmfestival 2007) and I shot the mayor (Or: Plan B) (a.o. nominated Silver Cub IDFA 2007, official selection Zagrebdox and HOTDOCS).
Bussink now lives and works in Amsterdam where she made her first feature length documentary The Lost Colony (Official Selection Rotterdam International Filmfestival, HOTDOCS a.o.) and has now finished her new personal documentary Mijn Enschede, about the Enschede fireworks disaster that happened in 2000, in which 23 people died, 1000 were injured. ‘My Enschede’ has premiered at the International Film Festival Rotterdam in January 2010.
During her artist in residency program in New York she started her project Constructions of (www.constructionsofhappiness.com) which she showed in galleries in New York and Edinburgh. Back in the Netherlands she is now continuing her COH project and is working on the documentary by the same title.
Credits
Director: Astrid Bussink
Camera: Robbie van Brussel
Editor: Riekje Ziengs