Sylvia Hoeks on her directing debut Magpie: “This story came from hitting rock bottom”
Leading Dutch actor Sylvia Hoeks (Blade Runner 2049; The Girl in the Spider’s Web) talks to IFFR Pro about her directorial debut, Magpie, which sees its Dutch premiere at IFFR 2026 as a prelude for Alex Cox’s Dead Souls.
Magpie: One for sorrow, two for Joy reads the full title of Sylvia Hoeks’ directorial debut, a deeply sinister tale of two best friends – Rita, who is heavily pregnant, and Joy, yearning for a child – who go into the US backwoods for a final weekend together before the birth. But only one woman emerges from the weekend away… together with a newborn child.
The film’s title derives from the childhood rhyme about the beautiful bird, known for its intelligence and skilful thieving abilities.
For Hoeks, the highly personal film developed from “a split second of a thought that would never enter my mind again”, and followed another failed attempt at IVF, a process she has gone through for many years.
“At that same time, the same week, both my sisters called me [to say] that they were pregnant. So I had like literally hit rock bottom basically”, she tells IFFR Pro. “I wrote this story down because… it was partially sisterhood and partially motherhood that were themes for me. I not only felt that I lost another chance to become a mother, but also I would lose the relationship with my sisters the way they had been because they were becoming mothers and I was not.”
In the film, Joy feels she is losing her friend Rita, while also bearing pain of her inability to conceive a child. “And so she chooses, in a crazy way, one of the options that is still available to her”, Hoeks says. “She feels like she’s losing her best friend and… also losing the dream of being a mother.”
Hoeks contemplated making a feature from the story, but the short film offered an opportunity “to actually figure out if I liked directing at all. Because I’ve written it and it was one way for me to birth something, you know, and to also reflect on it.”
The experience was very positive. “It’s just lovely to build something from the ground up, and not just jump on the train once it’s already running”, she reflects on taking the director credit over her usual acting credit. (That said, Hoeks also stars in Magpie, together with US-based actor Margarita Levieva.) “I really feel like it’s a beautiful process of building something from nothing.”
The film is produced by Ridley Scott’s Scott Free Productions, in co-production with Lemming Film (the Netherlands), and was developed during a period of strikes in LA, where Hoeks is based.
Despite its Dutch connections, the film has a distinctly North American feel in terms of the vast space in which the drama plays out. Hoeks is developing other projects, including a feature adaptation of a book. Her future directorial work is likely to be international and English-language, although the experience of working with Lemming Film has been very positive. “I think Holland right now is doing an amazing job in co-producing with other countries, and Lemming is very experienced at that”, she says.
“From when I was very young, I always wanted to travel, and I have a really big love and passion for different cultures, and bringing different cultures together. I have a passion for maybe telling stories about people [who] don’t necessarily get the benefit of the doubt of a lot of people, that people could not immediately identify with, and tell their story.”
Hoeks cites directors whom she has observed at first hand and whose approach will inform her own filmmaking. One is Denis Villeneuve, who cast Hoeks as antagonist Luv in Blade Runner 2049 (2017).
“He’s very confident in allowing you into his world and putting faith in you”, says Hoeks of the confidence Villeneuve instils in his actors. “Also, when he wouldn’t know [something], he would also say, I don’t know at this point, but I’ll get back to you. In a sense, you don’t, as a director, always have to know everything. It’s also okay to say, hey, I don’t know, let me think about it.”
Hoeks also reserves special praise for veteran Dutch director Jos Stelling, who cast her in Duska (2007) and The Girl and Death (2012). “He opened up his world of filmmaking all the way for me”, she says. “I learnt a lot about screenwriting. What he did for me taught me a lot, and really helped me on my way to getting a better idea of what it is like to be part of a film family. Everybody was on the same level. Everybody had the same respect. Actors were not higher than anyone for him.”
Hoeks is also a big fan of Dutch director Paula van der Oest, who directed her in Tiramisu (2008). “Paula is a very inspiring woman in film in Holland, in a time where there were not many women at all”, she says, acknowledging that van der Oest was instrumental in breaking the glass ceiling to enable more female directorial voices to be heard in the Dutch industry.
Despite her enormous appreciation for IFFR – whose experimental vibe she loves, together with its status as a home for great international arthouse films – Hoeks couldn’t be in attendance for the Dutch premiere of Magpie.
“It’s something that I cannot get away from, which is a big personal life event for me. There’s something that is happening now that also actually has to do, in my life, with the short story, [and] that is the reason I can’t come”, Hoeks signs off, with regrets.
-by Nick Cunningham
