Discoveries from Netherlands World Cinema

Bonus DVD featuring all 13 songs; the "UMOJA: The Spirit of Music" mini-documentary; "The Practice Room: Portugal"; "BLØF & Fado"; "One and Only: Indian Instruments"; "Didgeridoos & Didgeridon'ts"; "In Search of Drums"; "The Sound Artist"; "BLØF after UMOJA: Interviews"; "The Millennium Goals"; "AIDS in Russia"; and "Water".

Umfeld is an audiovisual production created in HD with audio meticulously composed for 5.1 channel surround. The work portrays a series of environments; moreover, it’s a world on its own where sound and image blend together, synthesizing a highly unique spatial experience. The piece is an intense audiovisual expedition that takes the audience through eight chapters comprising a drama drawing on the dynamic arc of a feature film, but consisting of highly abstract sounds and images.

In southern Italy, stateless migrants pick the tomatoes the rest of the world will taste. But what about these workers’ European dreams? Will they be ground to a pulp? Our canned tomatoes are picked by migrant workers who have come to southern Italy to realise their dream of Europe. However, they never get beyond the tomato fields. This documentary shows how the tomato broaches a broader issue. Will the pickers keep believing in their dream, or fight against a Europe where others reap the sweet rewards of their disillusion?

A woman teaches a lesson in the passage of time in this fashion portrait by director Femke Huurdeman.

Children in costume. fishing boats. Island of Marken on the former Zuiderzee bay, Netherlands.

An anthology film shaped by six people who share their desires and imagination. Each part works towards a whole which is concerned with perception and being perceived.

Composer Adam has to compose a European anthem while a tax inspector gets in his way.

Documentary that follows the lives of two pirates and their community on the Somali coastline; what are the incentives of the pirates, why did they become pirates, how did they grow up in a country with political chaos, war and extreme poverty? The narrative structure is built around two interweaving story-lines; one depicting the "present", the daily lives of the pirates and their community, and the second in the "past", revealing through epic animation, the unfolding of a recent hijacking.

In "Harrie Babba," we see Harrie Vermeulen once again in a contemporary absurd comedy of Jon van Eerd's New Genre. In "Harrie Babba," Harrie Vermeulen finds himself in quite a predicament as he emerges from the lamp as a genie. Harrie is tossed back and forth between hilarious misunderstandings and uproarious complications. With his riotous antics, unique timing, and unrivaled humor, Jon van Eerd, as always, manages to blow the roof off the theater.

Two teenagers fall in love, but they’re from two different worlds with very opposite family backgrounds. Remy is intrigued by Juliyat. She’s cool and clever thanks to an eventful and challenging life. Juliyat likes Remy because he’s full of brightness and spontaneity. But being in love in hostile surroundings is no easy task. Desperately, the teenagers try to get together in public and then secretly. Remy and Juliyat is a modern day Romeo and Juliet. A story about loyalty, betrayal and the ability to see potential in everyone. A heart-warming and youth-driven drama where love conquers all in the end.

Tragicomic documentary where director Hans Heijnen searches for the Dutch emigrant in foreign parts. The film focuses on a Southern-Limburg clan in California and shows how this small group stays loyal to the Dutch-Limburg traditions and habits. In the spirit of the long-gone 50s the emigrants visit the church every Sunday and arrange a weekly night of cards. Many things they are attached to do not exist in America, and tragically also not anymore in the country they left behind.

Road movie-style documentary about the Great Post Road (De Groote Postweg/Jalan Raya Pos). Pramoedya Ananta Toer (1925), one of the most important Indonesian authors of recent decades, wrote an essay about the Great Post Road at the request of director Bernie IJdis. This thousand-kilometer road across Java was built at the beginning of the last century under the leadership of the Dutchman Daendels and cost the lives of thousands of Indonesian forced laborers. Because Toer, as a former political prisoner, is restricted in his freedom of movement, the filmmakers act as his eyes and ears during a trip along the Post Road. During the journey, parallels between Indonesia in the past and present slowly unfold. In addition, as the film progresses, the grimness of Toer's situation and the situation in his country becomes palpable.

Colonel Brulgraag has found the will of King Krijn XXIV of Schiermeeuwen. Whoever finds Krijn's Sword will be the new king. The colonel asks Sjors and Sjimmie to search for the sword so that it can be taken to a museum and not used by Krispijn to gain power.

Based on the novel by Lucas Rijneveld. Follows a 10-year-old girl living with her family on a Dutch dairy farm.

When 16-year-old Charlie’s older sister, Robin, doesn’t show up for their long-awaited concert, Charlie’s gut tells her something is terribly wrong. What starts as a small worry quickly escalates into a frantic search, leading Charlie to uncover devastating truths about Robin’s life that she never could have imagined. Directed by Soraya Alicia and Simon Kieffer, How Many Miles is a student short film that tells a visually striking and emotional story of sisterhood, the search for truth and teenage resilience.

The Art of Being Free follows a moving conversation between Dutch TV icon Paul Haenen (77) and writer Lale Gül (27), who connect over their shared fight for personal and artistic freedom. Inspired by each other's books, they reflect on themes of identity, religion, family, autonomy, and being role models. Haenen, openly gay since 1964, and Gül, who challenged conservative Islam in 2021, explore what it means—and costs—to live freely. Directed by Hester Overmars, this tender and timely documentary is a powerful dialogue on courage, expression, and the human need for authenticity.

Team Gaza records the lives of four young football players daring to dream in Gaza, a land strip sealed off from the outside world.

In 1946, Anaïs López’ grandmother abandoned her two small children and left for South America with her Nazi lover. Or so the story goes. Photographer López browses through genealogical databases, combs out the internet, takes DNA tests, makes discoveries and dives deeper and deeper into this ever more complicated case. Everyone tells a different version of the history. But the deeper she digs, the more she loses grip. How important is it to know your family history?

In the medical literature, a good death is a death that respects the privacy and sensitivity of the individual, where emotional, spiritual and religious needs and wishes are met, and where there is enough time to say goodbye. Founded in 2007, the Wish Ambulance Foundation continues to work to ensure that terminal patients with limited time can say goodbye to life in a “good” way. Today, the foundation fulfills the last wishes of people of all ages with limited time to live. Frank Halter, a retired policeman who work as a volunteer for the foundation, has been part of this voluntary work for 6 years. The Good Death focuses on the last wishes of Wim Beuving, a terminally ill man with limited time left, and his meeting with Frank Halter, who volunteers to make these wishes come true.

Eyewitnesses (i.e. former prisoners, idealists, survivors) accounts of their/or others ordeal during the 40's and 50's of the 20th century, being convicted as 'peoples enemies' by the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, and exiled to the gold- and uranium mines in the Kolyma, the most remote -secured by the KGB- region in the Far East of Siberia.

A benefits claim appointment spins out of control when Candide, 23, borrows her sister’s baby and strangely pretends like it’s her own child. A suspicious Martijn, the caseworker, attempts to unravel her lies accusing Candide of fraud. But behind her charade lies an unexpected secret.

Short film in which Dutch author Simon Carmiggelt visits the hairdresser.

This corporate film shows the work of Dutch asphalt companies such as the Nederlandsche Basalt Maatschappij, NV Bitumenweg, and H.P. Vale Arnhem. We see the raw materials arriving by barge, the processing of these materials into the final product, and the different stages involved in paving the roads.

Short documentary where a student of medicine describes an experiment for which he drilled a small hole in his forehead in order to achieve a higher state of being

What does space sound like? In fact, like nothing at all—sound waves can’t travel through the interplanetary void.

Director Ramy Moharam Fouad followed Brussels based rapper Zwangere Guy around on his 2019 tour.

Finnish artist Pilvi Takala has set up a fake start-up company to gain access to SLUSH, a three-day conference event and self-celebration for venture capitalists in Helsinki. A world of inflated power talks, civilised aggression and illusion, where the most important thing is that you believe in the whole thing yourself.

A young lover surprises his girlfriend with a stay in a hotel. Shit hits the fan.

The princesses search for a magical golden crown

The Christmas I Love’ is a very special Christmas gift – a collection of some of the most tender carols personally chosen by Andre for this album and performed with the full forces of the Johann Strauss Orchestra and Choir. All the popular carols are there Ave Maria, White Christmas, Silent Night, Jingle Bells but also included are Baroque Christmas Classics Corelli's Christmas Concerto and “Winter” from Vivaldi's Four Seasons. The DVD offers a delightful Christmas experience featuring timeless yuletide favorites filmed in many of Europe's most beautiful locations.

Horror short by Erik Zijlstra.

In this nostalgic and yet dramatic documentary, choreographer Jiří Kylián creates a final work for his lifelong partner Sabine, a deeply personal performance that celebrates love, creation, and the ephemeral nature of life.

After a sleepless New Year’s Eve night, Jindra and his daughter Bára set out to search for their lost dog. The frustrating situation reopens unresolved conflicts. Bára blames Jindra not only for losing the dog, but also for his recent divorce from her mother. As they wander helplessly through deserted fields, Jindra tries to prove that he is not useless.

Jacky (18) deceives her blind mother(48), claiming she's in the talent class for the Limburg Majorette Contest. Despite lacking all dance skills, she must now work hard to maintain this lie as the contest approaches…

The 14-year-old Malak, Celia, and Jae travel with their parents to southern France for a summer without school, homework or daily duties. At the campsite, they can be who they want to be and do whatever they want. One looks for the company of her peers, the other withdraws into the online world with her smartphone and the third stays permanently in touch with her boyfriend. Intimate, dreamy, and recognizable documentary about infatuation, insecurity, and that complex period between childhood and adulthood

Essay on the theme of the influence of violence on man from birth to death. Fully-textured paintings animated.

In SPIRIT OF THE TIME (1968) van der Keuken presents a collage of "drop-outs," protesters (both left and right), musicians and "hippies." He organizes these figures around an idea of "mental readjustment," otherwise known as the counterculture. Acting upon a political and social withdrawal into self, they have tried to find new ways of living together.

A stand-up comedy set by the Dutch comedian Murth Mossel, recorded live in Toomler in January 2007.

Amid the aftermath of Mozambique’s civil war, I visit my grandmother, confronting fading memories and blurred lines between truth and fiction. A former rebel’s presence in the village echoes the relentless ghosts of war, mirroring the tensions of my generation.