Peter Mullan (Tyrannosaur, Ozark), Emun Elliott (Prometheus, Tell It to the Bees), Rebecca Front (The Thick Of It), Sam Hazeldine (The Hitman’s Bodyguard) and veteran character actor Bill Paterson (The Man Who Invented Christmas) have joined Dutch director Elbert van Strien’s Scottish-set psychological thriller Marionette.



The film, a Dutch majority production, has been put together as a Dutch-Luxembourgish-UK co-production. Financiers include The Netherlands Filmfund, the Netherlands Filmproduction Incentive, The Luxemburg Filmfund, Screen Scotland, Avrotros, CoBO Fund, and Creative Europe.

As previously announced, Dutch actress Thekla Reuten (Red Sparrow) stars in the film, which has just started principal photography in Luxembourg.

Van Strien co-scripted the project alongside Ben Hopkins (Simon Magus, The Market). The film is set in Scotland and will be shot on location in Aberdeenshire and Luxembourg. Shooting on the €5m co-production is forecast to wrap in early December and the film will be delivered in 2019.

Marionette tells the story of a therapist (Reuten), who loses her grip on reality when a 10-year-old boy claims he can control her future.

The film is produced by Claudia Brandt and van Strien from Accento Films (Two Eyes Staring) and Burny Bos from BosBros (Miss Minoes, The Zigzag Kid) alongside co-producers Jani Thiltges from Samsa Film and Arabella Page Croft from Black Camel Pictures. In The Air will handle the Benelux distribution.