Martin Malibu

In the spring of 2019, together with his school friend Marnix, Linus Kropp started with the creation of a character based on the region in the Netherlands they are both from; Westfriesland. The region is known for its stiff, stubborn, not a word too much, and concealed character. They named this character ‘Martin Malibu’. Martin is a parody on romanticising provincial life, and the pain and burdens of the troubled provincial artist. Martin’s life is dominated by his dream of becoming a singer, following in the footsteps of world famous Westfrisian singer George Baker. In the process of making this character, Linus started noticing how his friend Marnix slowly started to behave like Martin. He started to wear the same clothes, say the same things and act the same way as Martin. This made him curious to research this further and he started to approach the character in a more documentary way, to slowly introduce him from his fictional world into the real world. The more Linus was doing this, the less he had to direct it. With all its consequences, Marnix started morphing into Martin. A project that started as a film about a fictional character, ended in a documentary about how this fictional character took over a real person.