Celsius Entertainment

Winner Audience Award for Best Feature Film, 2009 Freeze Frame Int. Film Festival Winnipeg

Winner Best Feature Film for a Teenage audience, 2008 Cinemagic Belfast

Winner Golden Sprockets Awards: Best Feature Film, 2008 Sprockets Toronto

Winner 1st Prize Live-Action Feature, 2007 Chicago International Children’s Film Festival Awards

Other Festival Events: Berlinale (Official Selection/Generation), Kristiansand, Zlin, Gijon, Black Nights (Tallinn), Bangkok, A Movie in the Backpack (Bologna), Leeds, FICI (Madrid)

Synopsis:

In the final minutes of the European football championship Dolf (Joe Flynn) misses a crucial shot at goal and knocks his team out of the competition. Feeling he can’t live with his mistake, Dolf breaks into his mother’s advanced physics laboratory which holds an experimental time machine. Intending to go back in time to replay the football match, Dolf accidentally sends himself to the 13th century. Here he meets the feisty Jenne and the 8000 children of the Children’s Crusade. After using his modern-day knowledge to aid the children in their march, he quickly becomes their leader. As the Crusade continues, Dolf must draw on all his strength, cunning and bravery to save the children from a sinister plot to enslave them.

Ben Sombogaart – Director:

Starting out as a freelance director, Ben Sombogaart soon became the leading creative force behind a slew of popular local television series in his native Holland. Many of these projects focused on children, or their place in society. With successful television and documentary projects to his credit it wasn’t long until Ben began directing features. Ben’s film ‘My Father Lives in Rio’ won Best Film at Berlin in 1989 and productions such as ‘The Penknife’ and ‘The Flying Liftboy’ garnered acclaim all over the world. Ben Sombogaart’s previous feature was ‘Twin Sisters’ which was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 2004 Oscars.

Cast:

Joe Flynn, Stephanie Leonidas [YES, MIRRORMASK], Emily Watson [BREAKING THE WAVES, HILARY AND JACKIE, GOSFORD PARK], Benno Fürmann [JOYEUX NOEL, THE SIN EATER, THE PRINCESS AND THE WARRIOR], Udo Kier [MANDERLAY, BLADE]

About the new U.S. Release Version:

The film is currently 30 minutes shorter than the previous Dutch version and the story has been streamlined and sharpened bringing the characters and the conflict into greater relief. This new version has a new ending, some new scoring and a couple of new original songs written for the film.