Some 400,000 people have so far been to see Dutch film De Slag om de Schelde (The battle of the Scheldt), earning it a Platinum film award.

Directed by Matthijs van Heijningen jr, the film earned unanimously good reviews.

The  NRC said it revived a ‘half forgotten episode in the war in a compelling adventure, well scripted and well acted with production values unusual for the Netherlands, even on an internationally modest budget.’

Trouw called it ‘perhaps the best Dutch war film ever’ and praised its serious tone, its lack of glorification of wartime heroics and the absence of the obligatory romance.

The film describes the stories of three young people against the backdrop of the Nazi occupation culminating in the Battle of the Scheldt in 1944.

To gain control of Walcheren and Noord- en Zuid Beveland in Zeeland, British and Canadian troops had to force access to the port of Antwerp to secure a supply line. Facing difficult odds, and with the Germans flooding the land around the river, the five week campaign cost the lives of 10,000 people, a third of whom were citizens of Zeeland.

The three protagonists – a British pilot whose plane is downed over Zeeland, the daughter of a doctor whose brother has been arrested by the Nazis and a disillusioned Dutch Nazi who fought on the Eastern front – cross paths late in the film.

The film, which will be shown on Netflix in the autumn, cost €14m to make, which makes it the most expensive Dutch production to date. It is the first Dutch film to break the 400,000 visitors barrier since the beginning of the coronavirus crisis.