Director Michiel van Erp and producer Pupkin Film have created a series inspired by the murder of Marianne Vaatstra. The six-part drama ‘One of Us’ will premiere this fall on CANAL+. It is the first Dutch ‘original’ of the streaming service.
Sixteen-year-old Vaatstra was found dead in a meadow near Feankleaster in 1999. She had been raped and murdered. In Friesland, but also in the rest of the Netherlands, people reacted with shock to the brutal murder. Partly due to the attention that Peter R. de Vries paid to the case in countless broadcasts, a large-scale DNA investigation was carried out in 2012. Ultimately, Jasper S. was arrested after a one hundred percent DNA match, with material found on Marianne’s body.
The series One of us portrays a thirteen-year search for the perpetrator of the rape and murder of a 16-year-old young woman, who is found exactly between the fictional village of Griesbeek and an asylum seekers’ center. Each episode focuses on the story from a different main character.
‘Still terribly topical’
“Although the series is inspired by a 25-year-old crime, the story is still terribly relevant,” says producer Pieter Kuijpers. Van Erp believes that the appeal of the story is that the murder “was a catalyst for everything in the residents of the village that a person does not actually want to show: suspicion, mistrust, opportunism, betrayal. The events of that time are very similar to the state of our country today, where xenophobia, conspiracy thinking and wanting to play one’s own right are the order of the day.”
The cast will be announced later. The driving forces behind the series are Kuijpers (From God, TBS) and screenwriter Willem Bosch (The Spectacular, Penoza). CANAL+ wants to “underline our relevance for the Dutch public” with the series, according to manager Alco de Jong.
