High highs and low lows: that’s the best way to describe 2022 for Make Way Film. Our third year of existence hasn’t always been sunshine and rainbows, but you know: that’s life! Since we are a bunch of positive, enthusiastic, manifesting Make Way witches, we like to focus on all things good and are looking back on this year as a crazy ride full of adventures.

We moved to a new office this year (including horror masks and severed limbs hanging from our ceiling… don’t ask) and expanded our team by hiring Fleur for marketing and film distribution 🙂 And of course, we did what we do best: produced some sweet film productions…

Productions & premieres: work to be proud of

We premiered our first ever feature-length film, woohoo! And boy, did we make a brilliant one: De Openbaring (The Revelation). Working together with director Chris W. Mitchell, co-producer Jan Doense (Film Events), and all cast & crew was a wonderful rollercoaster. We premiered this covid-thriller in april at De Melkweg in Amsterdam with lots of champagne (naturally!) and glamour looks. Since then the film received great reviews, was featured at several film festivals and even won the award for best Best Horror Feature at Be Afraid Horror Fest!

(Dear Victor Löw during filming of De Openbaring)

And yes, we didn’t release just one, but TWO feature-length films this year! We premiered our found footage pearl Exhibit #8 at the Imagine Film Festival in Amsterdam in October. Exhibit #8 was selected for the upcoming Fantasporto’ 2023 film festival and we are working hard on making the film available via VOD next year. Stay tuned…

(Akri Issa getting bloody during filming of Exhibit #8)

2022 was also the year for short films, since we keep loving making those! In the second half of this year we finished MEAT ME (directed by Jan-Willem de Kraaij) and A Deer Caught in the Headlights (directed by Anil Wagemans & Idzi Wagemans and co-produced with Zeg Maar Films).

Preparing productions for 2023: let’s go!

What about a mid-length folklore horror film involving sinister women-like creatures that will be aired on television? HELL to the YES! Jennifer is doing a kick-ass job preparing this mysterious new project. We will share more about this big news at the beginning of next year, but believe us: this new production is going to give you all the chills!

Fauve has turned into a production manager herself and has started another great pre-production for LEAF: a post-apocalyptic short that will be shot in Spain next year. In co-production with Isabella Films and with Thom Lunshof as the wonderful director, this short will definitely become a must-watch!

And in other news: we are still working very hard on making a Shiny New World feature. The short has (yet again) won tons of festival awards this year and we are very happy with the artistic fund we received by the Filmfonds to keep on realising this feature. We also received a contribution by the Filmfonds for the scenario development of a new feature film: The Girl With The Green Eyes. We hope 2023 will be a good year for these upcoming productions!

(Filming a test shoot for the Shiny New World feature with…demons of course!)

Events? We do those too!

Yes, we know film production is what we do best, but we definitely know how to throw a party. Or in this case, know how to gather a lot of genre-loving, horror-adoring film professionals and

a). share with them the secrets of cinematography (we organised a new Genrehub meet-up in September with guest speakers Martijn Smits & Goof de Koning)

b). celebrate the beauty of post-apocalyptic films with them (we organised the IT’S THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT film festival last December at Het Ketelhuis Amsterdam together with Yfke van Berckelaer and raised €1000,- for the Voedselbank!)

c). have drinks with them (we organised a festive mixer together with the Imagine Film festival)

Anyways, we’ve rocked 2022 and we will continue rocking 2023! Thanks to everyone who we were able to work with this year. We would love to continue working with these wonderful connections and love making new ones next year <3