Mission
‘Fabuch’s mission is to create huge social impact, collective social and cultural awareness and improve the quality of life of disadvantaged and vulnerable people from all walks of life seeking for sheltered employment, our ‘Future Talents’, not only by telling urgent, social and immersive stories through fiction film, installations and performances, but also by including them in the process of making high-end cinema and performances through our sheltered employment program, where the can work permanently with a prize winning European cast and professional crew .
We create national impact campaigns that continue to create real and lasting change both at home with the target group, at MBOs, HBOs and universities and in The Dutch House of Representatives (De Tweede Kamer; the Dutch parliament) and at various ministries.
We try to revitalize the social and cultural participation of our Future Talents through their active participation in our projects, in front of the camera, on stage or behind the scenes. At Fabuch we train and educate them and give them a helping hand, a listening ear, new friends, renewed self-esteem and new perspectives on life through new experiences by creating films, performances and multimedia projects for a very broad (inter)national audience accompanied by our nationwide impact campagnes.’
Our Manifest
We dare to be ourselves and thus different from others.
*
We are socially engaged and will tell what needs to be told.
*
We provide sheltered employment to whom it may need.
*
We work with people from all walks of live, in combination with award winning actors and a professional crew.
*
We give “unusual” talent the chance to develop.
*
We are innovative and inclusive in story, form, financing and working-method.
*
We make real and long-lasting impact, on a personal and political level.
*
WORKS
Film
Ella (2015)
short, 7 min.
Lady (2018)
medium length, 30 min.
Maalkop (2019)
short, 8 min.
Allemaal Vogels (2019)
feature, 90 min.
Ada (2022)
medium length, 30 min.
Vanmiddag zal het regenen (2023)
short, 20 min.
Influencer (2024)
medium length, 40 min.
Maalkop (2025)
feature, 100 min.
status: pre-production
Toilet Europi (2025)
feature, 120 min.
status: development
Woodbrookers (2026/2027)
mini-serie, 4 eps. of 1 hour.
Video
Els (2020)
online live performance, 168 hrs
Els – De tweede golf (2020)
online live performance, 120 hrs
Theater
Gemma (2022/2024)
solo performance
40 shows
Muthe (2024/2025)
Music Theatre
20 shows
status: development
Anaconda (2025/2026)
Youth Theatre
50 shows
status: financing
The Whale (2025/2026)
Theatre play
40 shows
status: financing
Podcast
Maalkop (2019)
radioplay, 80 min.
Hoi, ik ben nieuw (2022)
interview series, 7 eps. of 45 min.
Expo
How to thank a graceful body (2020)
photo expo by Marc Haers & Fabian Claes Jansen
#MYOWNGENDER (2022/2024)
photo expo by Sevilay Maria
These are the ones (2024)
photo expo by Sevilay Maria & Fabian Claes Jansen
UPCOMING PROJECTS
Maalkop / Before I Go
Feature Film (approx. 100 minutes)
Status: Pre-production
Shooting: Autumn 2025 till Spring 2026
LOG LINE
A young farmer turns inward and looks back on his life before saying a drastic goodbye to his last cow.
. .
. .
Actor, director and producer Fabian Claes Jansen (Mannenharten, ADA, De Vloer Op) is working on the film Maalkop, based on the play Maalkop by location theatre PeerGrouP. The play Maalkop already created a lot of controversy within the agricultural sector in the summer and autumn of 2018 and the late spring/early summer of 2019, triggered two ministerial enquiries into depression and suicide among farmers and, with all 75 sold-out performances and high praise in the press and from within the sector, is an overwhelming and significant success.
Maalkop tells the story of a young farmer, played and directed by Jansen, who loses his grip on the farm, and with it his life, after the death of his parents. The young farmer feels close to the region, the farm and his animals, but the death of his parents, their debts left behind at the bank, current laws and regulations, his task as successor and the sudden loneliness drive him further and further away from the last people around him until he sees no way out and makes a disastrous decision. He cannot go back, only look back. Only his last cow seems to keep him afloat, or is she holding him captive?
‘What touched me most last year was the performance Maalkop.
A story of a farmer in front of his cow. It moved me and made me think.’
Carola Schouten,
Former Minister of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality.
————————————————————————————————
TOILET EUROPI
Feature Film (approx. 120 minutes)
International Coproduction
Status: Development
Shooting: 2025
LOG LINE
Two retired volunteers and an intern are fighting, independently, against an inhumane European law that is about to make humanity a crime.
. .
. .
Toilet Europi is a ‘what if’ story, set in a time very close to our own. Toilet Europi tells the story of 3 unpaid workers; ‘a volunteer manager of a public toilet in Poland, a Dutch volunteer driver on a wheelchair accessible van and a trainee from the Hogere Hotelschool in a Flemish chateau/hotel, who each in their own way fight against the hardened mentality towards asylum seekers, against an inhumane law that is about to take effect and against the hardening and right-wing mores of the European Union.
The law involves a European ban on housing, transporting or helping asylum seekers in any way. It is 00.05 at night and the law takes effect at 07.00 the next morning. The law prohibits any European citizen from helping wandering asylum seekers in any way yet, hefty penalties await for breaking the law. Fines, imprisonment, closure of companies, etc.
Any asylum seeker, on the other hand, who has official shelter by that particular morning at 07.00, may be helped and allowed to stay in the European country where he/she/it is then and is granted asylum. Anyone who still has no place to stay after that will be detained, given a criminal record and immediately expelled from Europe. How far will these three people go for their humanity?
Concerned with the fate of errant asylum seekers in Europe and vehemently opposed to the way they are viewed with horror, we saw that we needed to map out a possible future ‘horror’ scenario here. Partly because of the refugees we worked with before and the stories of their tragic journey through Europe, where nothing is what it seems and even turns out much worse. But also because we sometimes feel so powerless against false pretenses of the great European-orchestrated right-wing power, which all but articulates or represents the thoughts of so many European citizens with us.
Toilet Europi will be our first international co-production. We are now looking for co-producers from Belgium, Germany and Poland.
———————————————————————————————–
WOODBROOKERS
Mini TV-Series (approx. 4 eps. of 50 minutes)
Status: Development
Shooting: Autumn 2026 till Spring 2027
LOG LINE
Seven young people are bound together by their horrific experience in Dutch youth care system. Now, together with their parents, they are trying to shut down this youth care institution where everything that you do not hope and expect happens.
. .
. .
In 2023, a research report with extremely shocking conclusions surfaced what had seemed well tucked away at the bottom of the joint Frisian municipalities’ desk drawer for two years. It concerned an investigation into Friesland’s largest youth care institution, where really everything went wrong that could go wrong. Human trafficking, abuse, incarceration, drug dealing, sexual exploitation, deprivation of liberty, and so on.
Among others, research forums Follow The Money and Pointer, the newspapers NRC and Leeuwarder Courant, wrote about this on numerous occasions, each time with new shocking conclusions.
Our film studio is practically 1,000 metres from the now-closed youth care institution. Some of our Future Talents do know young persons who have lived there. This ensures that, given our objective and the reason for of founding, we have no choice but to make a project about this, especially since we were their neighbors. Hence we have a decided to make a mini series of this tragic story.
Research has already begun and interviews are being conducted. Later this autumn, we will present a pitch book for the series. So stay tuned!
Industry Recognition
Awards:
48 hrs FP Award: ELLA (6 awards)
Noorderkroon Award: Best Northern film – ADA
Noorderkroon Audience Award – ADA
Noordster: Best Northern Film – ADA
Nominations:
Noorderkroon Award: Best Northern Film- LADY
Noordster: Best Northern Film – LADY
Noorderkroon: Best Northern Film – Vanmiddag zal het regenen
Recommadtions:
‘Fabian has a very distinctive choice of subjects and a clear, calm style that sets him apart from the crowd. He touches on politically and culturally sensitive topics with a humanistic perspective, without ever being pedantic to the audience. His visual style is precise, detailed and refreshing.
Joris van Wijk –
Executive Film Producer of Tonio, D Storm and Knielen Op Een Bed Violen, among others.
‘Fabian’s strength lies in a unique combination of freedom and direction: he knows exactly what he wants,but also lets staff and actors loose in order to ensure that in every collaboration crew and cast reach maximum performance.’
Mick van Rossum –
Head of Cinematography at the Amsterdam Film Academy and Cinematographer / DOP. on films including Overspel, Mannenharten, De Prins en het Meisje, De Kroon.
‘Fabian’s inventiveness, creativity and endless energy to create struck me immediately. He is a great inspiration to me. He is a true storyteller with a strong imagination and original fantasy.’
Anne van Dongen –
First AD at Laila M., Uilebal, Niemand In De Stad, Weg Van Jou, among others.
PRESS
About our latest work: GEMMA
‘A tender portrayal by bi-gender actor Fabian Claes Jansen… Jansen lifts Gemma to a high level.’
De Volkskrant
★★★★
‘Fabian Claes Jansen knows how to grab everyone in the room by the proverbial lurves from the very first counts of his monologue… Through his subtle intonation, facial expressions and physicality, Fabian Claes Jansen makes this struggle insightful.’
Leeuwarder Courant
★★★★★
‘Not a barricade piece to claim to be different, but a very understated and at the same time abrasive story… That double identity and especially that struggle of feelings and identity that Fabian Claes Jansen is waging comes in. You notice that in the audience who sit and listen breathlessly without any false emotion getting the upper hand… Gemma by Fabian Claes Jansen (text, direction and acting) convinces from an urgent content that transcends form.’
Friesch Dagblad
★★★★★
About: MAALKOP
‘There are those moments when, as a theatergoer, you suddenly realize that you are experiencing something special. Fabian Jansen takes you into the soul of a young farmer who no longer sees a hole in it.’
Dagblad van het Noorden
★★★★★
‘A jewel of a performance.’
Leeuwarder Courant
★★★★★
‘Really special to experience. The symbiosis between man and animal, feeling and mind.’
Fries Dagblad
★★★★★
‘Valuable when theater can be so relevant to give words to deep emotions.’
Eindhovens Dagblad
★★★★★
‘Occasionally Jansen interrupts his role as narrator to get into the skin of a character. He does so subtly, with only slight shifts of emphasis. As in fact everything in this performance carries a high degree of subtlety. With that beautiful blister head as an imperturbable listener.’
Theaterkrant
★★★★