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Boost NL Interview: Tiger Stripes

Feature debutant director Amanda Nell Eu describes her Boost NL project as a coming of age body horror pic. The film, budgeted at €500,000, describes the experiences of an 11-year-old girl whose body undergoes monstrous physical transformation - to the point where she is no longer able to hide it from the world. “My films have always dealt with this idea of feminine identity using both horror and myth, especially myths from our region, from Malaysia,” adds Eu.

Eu attends Utrecht with producer Foo Fei Ling. “This is a first feature for both of and incredible scary - a huge jump from making shorts,” says the director. “Although this is an independent project, with shorts you are way more independent. You take it[a short] and you go with it and it is so much more manageable. I think Boost NL will be very useful for us, showing us the steps on how features work at development and finance stage, and with pitching. That is why we are here, to get feedback from film professionals with a lot of experience, and hopefully to pull in information so we can work out what we are going to do next.”

Eu is in no way precious about having her script dissected for the purposes of improvement. “I love advice and critique. I’m not really the type that gets so stressed when others are saying things that I may disagree with. I love to take in all the information and then use what is useful, whether it is positive or negative,” she stresses. “For me it is interesting to let other people see the project and receive their fresh reactions to it, especially to things we didn’t see. And when there is something that we thought was working well, it is good to hear their positive reaction to that too.”

The producer/director team are aiming for a mid-2020 shoot, “but we still have to find the funding,” reminds producer Foo Fei Ling. “Boost NL is a very good starting platform for us to pick everybody’s brains and see if our strategies are good enough.”
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