Submarine

After working for ten years at the Dutch public broadcaster, Bruno Felix and Femke Wolting felt that more was possible. Together they started Submarine, a cross-media production company that makes series, feature films, documentaries and animations.

Founder Bruno Felix tells the story.

“Submarine has now existed for 23 years. Femke and I felt, during our work in Hilversum, that we wanted more, that we were entrepreneurial enough to build something great ourselves. We wanted to tell stories our own way. We both have an endless curiosity and a passion for ‘grabbing’ your audience with a good story. Our interest spans the whole world, and that is what we try to reach with our productions too.”

Submarine produces media for all kinds of audiences: from toddlers to adults and the elderly and everything in between, Bruno says. “We look for stories that resonate with the times. In our documentaries we often explore a possible future. For every project we can explain why it was interesting to make at that moment – for us and for the audience.”

Producing a film or series takes at least seven years, Bruno explains. “Developing a script takes two years, financing a film or series about four years, and then you still have to produce and release it. Usually an idea for a production arises from something that inspires us or a wish to create something great for a particular audience. Sometimes we then come up with something ourselves, or we take an option on a book – to turn it into a film or series. Occasionally a maker comes to us with an idea for a script.”

Every film producer a lawyer

Every production company has a legal partner, Bruno states. “Our whole profession is legal; without law it simply would not exist and would not be lucrative. Copyright laws give us the guarantee that we can earn money from our productions. Law recurs in all the contracts we enter into with writers, illustrators, actors and musicians. And the end result, our production, must of course also be protected by copyright as a whole. That is why you need good lawyers to support you in this.”

The intention is that this acquisition gives Submarine more clout, Bruno explains. “It strengthens our position in negotiations and financing and it gives Submarine continuity. I am ‘ancient’, of course, and the people who work in our company probably want to keep doing so longer than I intend to. Nothing will change in the way we work and make creative choices, but the context in which we operate will. Creatively we stay small, commercially we can be big. We want to reach an international audience with our stories and get people on the edge of their seats. Our ambition is to play in the Champions League, not to stay stuck in the second division. Secretly we of course dream of an Oscar. And from now on we can ‘lean on our big brother’.”

Future projects

Before he retires, Bruno would still like to make a boys’ series, for an audience of around ten years old. “It is a dream of mine to make a series that they – later, as grown men in the pub – still talk about. It has to be a series that tells a story, with soul in it. Something not made from a commercial point of view, but with a higher purpose. It is still unclear what the story will be, but one of the ideas is to make an apocalyptic series for a young audience. As I see it now, I still have about ten years for that.”

In addition, Submarine is preparing an animated film about the young years of Vincent van Gogh. “The project sat on the shelf for a while, but the script is now finished and I am working on financing it. The film will probably appear in 2026. We are also making a series for toddlers (‘Een jong katje Max’) and a feature-length animated film about the return of Anton de Kom to Suriname. We always work on about ten films and series at the same time – we are never idle.”