Een vreemde vogel

Summary

First and only feature length film directed by lyricist Lennaert Nijgh in which a young man tries to come to terms with his father’s wartime past.

A student has written a play for his school’s annual theatre performance. When it turns out that the boy has exposed his father’s dubious behaviour during the war, the question that has to be asked is: should the play be staged or not?

Een vreemde vogel remained Lennaert Nijgh’s only venture into filmmaking. Nijgh, who became famous for writing song lyrics for singer Boudewijn de Groot (notably ‘Welterusten, meneer de President’ (Sleep Well, Mr President) had made some short films with De Groot earlier when they both studied at the Amsterdam Film Academy.

The film was shown during the Arnhem Film week in 1967 but never officially released. Film magazine Skoop editor Wim Verstappen said some relatively kind words to the effect that the makers had chosen ‘a truly important subject’ but that, unfortunately, the execution was ‘abominable’.