Anatomy of a Murder

ANATOMY OF A MURDER is a 'Teledoc', a scheme in which Dutch public broadcasters and the Netherlands Film Fund cooperate, to promote the development and realisation of feature-length documentaries for prime-time TV and the big screen.

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On a Friday in February twelve years ago, filmmaker Joop Van Wijk’s wife received an alarming phone call from her brother-in-law Jos: 'her sister Ancil had disappeared and he had reported her missing'.
A month later Ancil's body was found: she had been killed by 11 blows with an ax.

The culprit turned out to be husband Jos himself, depriving their two young children of their mother.
Jos was sentenced to 8 years in jail.
He served his time and has now been released. The case is closed.
But for family and other people involved it doesn’t feel that way.

ANATOMY OF A MURDER reconstructs Ancil's murder, its background and its consequences.
The culprit, the foster mother of the children, Ancil's family and her friends, police and state attorney take the floor again. Not to condemn the killer one more time or to come to a final or common conclusion, but to do justice to the complexity of a family tragedy like this.

Press
"Too true to be good..." (VPRO Magazine)
Look here for a conversation (in Dutch) with Joop Van Wijk about the film