Discoveries from Netherlands World Cinema

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Brought in by an ill wind, a stranger from another world falls to earth into the body of a young man. A glitch in this interchange hampers the alien consciousness to fully integrate in the new found carcass. We follow this being for a day in their muffled wander through earth.

Registration of the Dutch musical 'Maskerade'. The story takes place in 1910 and is about Bastiaan de Geer (Jos Brink) who, in order to impress Miss Mariëtte van Heusden Hurgonje, tells everyone that he is of noble descent, reluctantly helped by his friend, couturier Sandor Petri (Frank Sanders). Because Bastiaan's mother is actually a housekeeper for Sandor Petri, Bastiaan disguises himself as Dowager de Geer in order to keep up appearances for Mariëtte. The masquerade is further intensified and Bastiaan is forced to also pretend to be an ex-resident of the Indies and as his own butler.

Two girls meet each other at a party and bring home a friend of theirs who is a bit too drunk. They wander around the streets of Utrecht and end up bringing each other home back and forth, because they don’t want the night to end.

Backlight is staying in the Basque village of Mondragón, where the majority of the population works in cooperatives. All employees are also co-owners and together they decide on the company policy. Even in today’s harsh economic climate, this approach is successful. Mondragón manufactures high-grade technological products and is now the seventh largest company in Spain, a multinational with branches all over the world. Boards, authorities and economists are keen to establish a model that functions properly and is above all internationally competitive. Mondragón is always used as an example and is flooded with visitors from all over the world. Backlight investigates the cooperative model in times of crisis. How firmly is this model anchored in society? Are notions like solidarity, participation and self-support generally accepted?

A modest and loving portrait of a small enclave of old-fashioned beach huts by the North Sea. The sound track is fragments of conversations with the inhabitants, who themselves are not seen on screen; the protagonists on screen are the huts, the beach and the sea. And, only a stone’s throw away, the heavy industry of the Hoogovens furnaces.

Patrick Laureij gets vulnerable for his second comedy show, talking openly about his depression in a personal yet funny way.

In love with her city, the director takes us on a journey of exploration and encounters in the greater Brussels area. She lets herself be moved and offers us a breath of fresh air. A hymn to life and to Brussels!

Jacob's (84) life is based on rituals; waking up with his favorite music and doing jigsaw puzzles until dawn. He thinks he's perfectly capable of living on his own but his children think otherwise, his fragile body and confused mind increasingly let him down. With great sadness and under protest Jacob leaves his old life behind to discover that living in a nursing home is not so bad at all.

When the Dutch filmmaker Roy Seerden’s mother dies, there’s no holding him back. Sex, drugs, roaming through the night: his life transforms into a bundle of energy, grief and detachment. At the same time, he can’t help thinking of Antoine, the strange neighbor from his youth. Antoine the non-conformist, who was eventually thrown out of his home and ended up on the street. Without putting it into words, Seerden draws an obvious parallel between Antoine and himself.

Short film.

Documentary on the genesis of oil in the Earth's crust.

A documentary about the cinema Kriterion Roetersstraat en Studio K in Amsterdam.

In Rembrandt, Haanstra shows that it is possible to make a fascinating film only with images from paintings. He had to travel though all over Europe to numerous museums and private owners in order to film the works of art. In the work of the great painter, Haanstra recognizes his particular interest in man as an individual human being, cutting straight through all the religious motives. And Haanstra also wants to see Rembrandt as an individual.

In this documentary the viewer meets eighteen-year-old Chamoetal Zeidler, who starts her two years of mandatory military service in the Spokesperson’s Unit of the Israeli Army (IDF). With an Israeli father and a Dutch mother, growing up in Israel and in the Netherlands, going to the army wasn’t the obvious choice for Chamoetal. In the course of the film we learn how Chamoetal experiences her time in the army and how she transforms from a teenager into a grown-up soldier, who must justify all IDF actions.

A film about the making of a film. A director rehearses with actors and actresses some scenes from his pantomime about the death of Pierrot. The players then put on their costumes and make-up. In automobiles, all the members of the film crew are driven to a country estate where the film within the film is to be made and where the cameraman is seen turning the handle of his camera.

In their second show, Waardenberg & de Jong attack each other with yoghurt, paint, water and wood glue. They end as sea lions, diving in a pool from a water slide.

Using information from the investigation following the dropping of the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, this documentary outlines the immediate 24 hours following the massive explosion. The first atomic bomb contained 140 lbs of enriched uranium and reduced the downtown to a wasteland with 70,000 people killed immediately. Another 40,000 died three days later when a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. The Army spent 10 weeks studying the impact of the explosion focusing on thermal flash. The immediate impact was that some were vaporized leaving only atomic shadows. Triangulating these led them to conclude that the bomb exploded only a few hundred yards from its intended target. There was heavy damage for 3 miles in every direction. A great many were burned but there was very little information about radiation poisoning at the time. Today, scientists are still studying but the study continues today with the study of 120,000 Hiroshima survivors.

a woman experiences the same day...but is it a time loop?

An odd female mammal called Meatstew has a phantom pregnancy. Fishstew, her male human companion, is extremely mean to her. The pregnancy, maybe through a nightmare or through the TV, becomes contagious and defies gender or inter-species boundaries... Who will give birth?

Two players enter the ring, but only one controls the game.

The Oudejaarsconference (New Year's Eve performance) of the year 2023 by the Dutch comedian Micha Wertheim.

More and more kids nowadays grow up in a non-traditional or modern family construction. What stories lie behind these families and what are the effects on the children?

In Wiertz and Verbeek's kinetic, kaleidoscopic opus Keep on Turning (1974, 3 min, 16mm, sound) cubes convey, rotate and shift in tandem.

Slapstick-Noir about an attractive prostitute in the Red Light District in Amsterdam who has the worst day of her life; all her costumers die in freak accidents before they have taken their pants of. With the police banging down the door she needs to get rid of the bodies.

Bassie & Adriaan are in Denmark. There they will receive the package from the hands of a children's friend, but who is that? When Bassie sees a Viking ship during his search through Denmark, he thinks he is dreaming. But when he suddenly sees B100, he knows he is wide awake. After Denmark, Bassie & Adriaan go to Belgium. On their way there, they are having a great time. They are traveling in a hot air balloon. From the balloon, they look out over beautiful Belgian towns and villages. But they don't see that B100 is preparing an ambush under the balloon...

ANA ANA is a cinematic poem about four young creative Egyptian women. Most of the material is filmed by the characters themselves, who worked with the film’s directors in a process of collaboration and mentorship over a course of two years. The four main characters find creative ways to express what is hidden within their hearts: speaking of their dreams and desires in an extraordinarily open and intimate way, and using metaphors, and cinematic storytelling to transform the every-day struggles of their lives into the sublime. Set in the overwhelming chaos of Cairo, the film also oscillates back and forth between an empty and abstract desert, which might be real or unreal.

An animated short that paints an eerie portrait of a lone miner trapped underground after a grisou (gas) explosion. The film unfolds through stark, woodcut-style imagery and a meticulous soundscape—boots echo, water drips, insects clatter.

The film tells the incredible story of a university created shortly after the Second World War by refugees of the three Baltic Countries. They started with nothing, in a city which was in ruins and yet they managed.

A mysterious light follows the surfaces of the virtual and tangible, the organic and inorganic and the habited and inhabited. A panoptic gaze is implied; one is never lonely, yet always lonely. An obscure reality is portrayed, shrouded with paranoia and superfluous information. Flashing cuts of vignettes appear, jumping between the virtual and tangible realm. The character, trapped in this reality, burrows into a state of complete apathy, growingly disoriented by the hyper saturation of superfluous information and paranoid atmosphere. Blank space, blank eyes, blank name. The viewers are invited to disorient themselves in this obscure world.

The Manadonese Senna is about to embark on her first journey to explore her roots in Indonesia. A week before her departure, she attempts to connect with her mother Annie and other family members. Her efforts fail one by one, until she reveals a secret. Will Senna be able to break through her mother’s silence?

26-year-old Joshua goes on a solo trip to a gay-friendly beach town to spend a week enjoying time with his community, but when he arrives, it turns out to be harder than expected to connect with the men there.

Park Assist is an absurdist grounded sci-fi short about an android that tests its brand new human park assist system in an old parking lot. While the PA's beep their hearts out and gasp for breath, the android remains determined to park its old-timer precisely right. No matter what.

Three women in heavy make-up find themselves in an empty flat.

Registration of the first comedy special by the Dutch standup comedian Kim Schuddeboom.

A short documentary film about Anton de Kom (Paramaribo, Suriname, 1898- Sandbostel 1945) , man of resistance, writer, who fought against racism, colonialism, war and nazism. In this short documentary film three of his children, all in their eighties, look back on their youth. A life that is closely connected to major historic events of both Suriname and The Netherlands.

When Kees visits his life companion Arnold in the nursing home, he struggles to make any meaningful contact with him. Still, Kees is shocked to hear that advanced data measurements indicate a critical decrease in Arnold’s sense of joy in life.

A Grey pupil in the Star Wars universe is subjected to a physical and mental test by his mentor to prove that he is on the right path of the Force: being neither Jedi nor Sith.

When Owen's girlfriend asks him for a "roze koek" (a Dutch pastry, "pink cake"), a quest follows past guards at the candy machine, at the changing rooms and even at the toilets... Then Owen discovers that school principal has sold the school to an organization 'that doesn't want to do anything with it for the time being.' 'Kun je wisselen?' was the exam assignment of the Podium class of the Ostrea Lyceum in Goes, under the guidance of Annet Minderhout. The film was made possible by the province of Zeeland as part of a larger project.

When the Pan-African activist Mwazulu Diyabanza walks into the Afrika Museum in the Dutch village of Berg en Dal and leaves with an exhibition object under his arm, the police arrest him for theft. But according to Diyabanza, he is merely retrieving what was stolen from Congo during colonial rule and returning it to where it came from.

At a special campsite in France, children help each other cope with their parents' divorce.