Birmingham, Al (WIAT) What are the odds that a Dutch movie maker would be in Aruba, five years after Natalee Holloway's disappearance on a graduation trip, making a movie about the Mountain Brook teen and Joran van der Sloot....when van der Sloot bursts back into international headlines accused of killing a 21 year old Peruvian student?
That's the plot line Paul Ruven suddenly found himself in. The Dutch producer/director was in Aruba quietly filming "Me and Mr. Jones", a fictional account of a journalist's search for answers to the Natalee mystery when truth became stranger than fiction. Joran van der Sloot was arrested for the murder in Lima, Peru of Stephany Flores...a case with eerie similarities to the Natalee disappearance.
His reported response to that news? To work the Flores murder into the script of his project. Just what you'd expect from the author of the much praised book "SCREENWRITING FOR MONEY AND AWARDS"
But who is Paul Ruven?
He's no newcomer to film making with a lengthy list of screen credits on both sides of the Atlantic...both
movies and
television shows.
His website describes him as "director, screenwriter and script doctor for films, tv, commercials, music video's.
He won an Oscar: Academy Award for Best Foreign Student Movie: co-screenplay, 'Alaska', director Mike van Diem.
Screenplay of 'The Emperor's Wife', starring Jonathan Rhys Meyers ('Mission Impossible 3, Match Point, Bend it like Beckham').
Director and co-screenplay of one of the most succesful Dutch movies: 'Filmpje': over 1 million visitors.
His films won many international prizes and got selected in many international filmfestivals like Berlin."
There's more info at the website
IMDb.
The Holloway/van der Sloot project, Me and Mr. Jones, will be released in English early next year. It stars Dutch actors Emmy-nominated Robert de Hoog (“Skin”) and Hanna Verboom (“Deuce Bigalow”).
There is a previous film about the Natalee Holloway case made for the Lifetime Movie Channel based on Beth Holloway's book "Loving Natalee: A Mother's Testament of Hope and Faith". The Lifetime movie first aired in 2009 and pulled more than 3 million viewers...the largest audience in the cable network's history.
