Dirty Lines: A Dutch Netflix Original Series Starts Production in Amsterdam

Production for the Dutch Original Netflix series Dirty Lines started in Amsterdam. The series is made in collaboration with Fiction Valley and inspired by Fred Saueressig’s book 06-Cowboys about the rise of the telephone sex lines in the late 1980s. The series is created by Pieter Bart Korthuis and directed together with Tomas Kaan and Anna van der Heide.

The story of Dirty Lines starts in 1987’s Amsterdam, at a time when Dutch society was changing rapidly. Psychology student Marly Salomon takes on a side job working for a brand new firm: Teledutch – a company started by two brothers, Frank and Ramon Stigter, who established Europe’s first erotic telephone lines. Frank and Ramon become rich overnight and Marly finds herself immersed in this wild and rapid transformation.

The final years of the Cold War sparked a sense of hope and inspired a new generation to celebrate life to its fullest. Amsterdam became the center of that cultural revolution with a radically new form of music: house and a new love drug: XTC. The erotic phone lines offer the opportunity to experience anonymous sex in a new way, changing the morality of its consumers, but also very much the people creating it.

“Amsterdam is a lot more modern today than it was 30 years ago, so it is quite challenging to find the right streets and houses to match the look and feel of the 1980s. It is amazing how our creative teams have managed to recreate the city that I remember from my youth. Dirty Lines is set during a period in which Amsterdam was changing at full tilt. For me personally this was the time when I went to study in the city. While shooting at the university, I imagined myself as Marty MacFly in Back to the Future, I traveled back to my own days as a student. It is fantastic to see the scenes come to life.” says creator and director Pieter Bart Korthuis.

The cast of Dirty Lines will be announced soon.