PREPRODUCTION.

Once home we realized that this movie would be at its best if it became something like a documentary with actors. It would be great to use real environments as backgrounds, real 'clients' as extras. It would have a big impact on the scheduling, but the energy in the scenes would be much more intense. Geert started writing. During that time Dirk-Jan and Tonneke flew in quite a few times to go through the story, and to try to add layers to the script. We hoped that this would become a unique piece of work, for an international audience. The arena seemed to have endless possibilities. In late July the script was at a stage in which we could present it to people.
Initially we intended on making this with unknown actors, but Hollywood veterans we talked to urged us to having at least one 'name' actor; it would dramatically increase chances to get distribution. We decided to test our luck by sending the script to some agencies. It worked. In August we got a call from UTA. Tim Blake Nelson wanted to meet us.
Tim turned out to be a very energetic man, a passionate moviemaker, a fast mind pouring out ideas. It was clear to us that with Tim we would add another powerful engine to our little project. We had left open to him which of the two brothers to play, and Tim was interested in playing the role of the older brother. Already during that first meeting he mentioned his friend David Arquette as a possibility for the younger brother. At the same time, Tim was trying to size us up, wondering if these Dutch documentary makers had it in them to pull off a first feature.

Following our meeting with Tim, we found our line-producer Amy Segal on the Internet. Amy liked the story and loved Russia. Being energetic, and very experienced with film-production overseas (involved with productions as James Bond, Anna and the King, etc.), Amy turned out to be the ideal candidate to pull off the practical aspects of this adventure.

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