The Debut (1977 film)

Het Debuut ('The Debut') is a 1977 Dutch drama film based on a Hester Albach's novel and directed by Nouchka van Brakel.

Plot summary
A 14 year old girl and a 41 year old friend of her father's fall in love, and soon their relationship grows into a sexual one as well. For some time all is happy, but then the tension grows too much, because of the secrecy and frustration of being the lover of a married man, and because she feels he starts to treat her too much like a child instead of a lover.

Cast

 * Marina de Graaf as Carolien
 * Gerard Cox as Hugo
 * Pleuni Touw as Rita/Hugo's wife
 * Kitty Courbois as Anne/Carolien's mother
 * Dolf de Vries as Dr.Peter/Carolien's father
 * Wendy Ferwerda as Susan
 * Sandrien van Brakel as Tanja/Carolien's schoolmate
 * Pieter Fleury as Jacques

Production
News of the film version began to pick up steam in November of 1976 when De Telegraph ran a full-page article on the film's casting. Nouchka van Brakel wanted an unknown for the lead, though. It was essential that the part not be played by a recognizable actress. A week before Christmas, 1976, De Telegraph announced 17-year-old Marina de Graaf as the actress who Van Brakel had cast.

Reception
"Het Debuut was one of the top three Dutch films of 1977." The film, "Nouchka's first full - length film, (is) a confident justification of her belief that a woman can render her sex much more precisely on screen than a male director can", according to Dutch Cinema: An Illustrated History.