Discoveries from Netherlands World Cinema

2002 Dutch short documentary film about The Breeders.

Entertaining holiday slapstick: to be able to go on holiday quietly and carefree, a man not only leaves his dog, but also his goldfish, his cat, his houseplant and his wife.

After the death of her husband Ivan, writer Marion Bloem must rebuild her life. While painting, she processes her pain and grief, as she has not yet found the words to put her emotions on paper. Later, the poems come, and after a long inner process, she writes a book. A film about love, loss, and the transformative power of creativity.

A short documentary (30 min) for the NOS about a Nepalese anthropologist who is researching the care of elderly people in the Dutch countryside. He chose Schoonrewoerd for this, a strict reformed village with 1500 inhabitants in the Vijfherenlanden 30 km under the smoke of Utrecht. The main street divides the village in two directions within the same faith: Calvinist and Dutch Reformed. Rajendra Pradhan tries to understand the village, he learns Dutch and goes to live there for a year. He gradually discovers that the village is studying him instead of the other way around. Every minute of his actions is being watched.

For many communities, video rental shops hold a dear significance: a place where anyone and everyone could rent a film. As they become a dying species, Rotterdam artist Gyz La Rivière shares the stories of the remaining few in The Netherlands and the Benelux.

Anas Qadamani uses a variety of appropriated images belonging to different sources, in order to weave a furious critique of colonialism and its political double standards. Taking as a point of departure the case of African elephants brought to Europe, this essay-film leads us to a more general reflection about the present-day crises that devastate our world and rob it of humanity.

Sound designer, filmmaker and hardcore raver Dennis van Rijswijk and his producer, music journalist Holly Dicker, bring a documentary homage to the dance scene in Rotterdam during and since the 90s gabber boom. Filled with nostalgia-inducing archival materials and intimate interviews with DJs, party organisers and ravers alike, the film takes a deep dive in what made the Rotterdam scene so unique. While celebrating the highlights of hardcore’s infamous history, this passionate film also explores how the scene has progressed and reshaped itself in a post-pandemic cultural landscape.

An overwhelmed video encoder turns confusion into a cosmological force. Poetry and iridescent cinematography reimagine a walk along the Maas River, where bodies merge and emotions shimmer. Through a technical experiment that misinterprets raw camera signals, the film crafts a perception far removed from the clarity of conventional photography. Guided by Clara Afonso’s visceral poem Corps D’écumes, we are invited to linger in confusion and discover what unfolds when the boundaries of our interpretive frameworks give way.

Low angle. A sheep lies on its back in a field. Its legs stick up into the air helplessly. We hear the sound of the animals desperate breathing. A lapwing calls. The ground trembles as a train passes by in the background.

During the Christmas holidays, Amir and Amira, both ten years old, end up in a shelter with their mother. On New Year's Eve, they are determined that the performance they've been planning for weeks, can still go ahead.

Stone is a short film based on a story about a group of Spanish villagers that were living on two sides of a river. No bridges connected the sides of the river, and the villagers could not swim. By carrying a stone and holding their breath, they had just enough time to walk over the bottom of the river to the other side. I thought this image was so simple and beautiful that I got the urge to re-enact it myself. The film is a compilation of multiple shots that have been spliced into one seemingly continuous scene. The trickery of the montage makes it that it seems like I hold my breath much longer than I actually do.

In a large open and light shower room a boy is washing himself, posing like he is acting in a shower gel commercial. With exaggerated movements, his hands slide all over his skin with the foam pouring plentifully down his body, as if this scene sprang from someone else’s imagination.

Construction begins for a new pavilion at Hilversum's botanical gardens. The architects, in the role of builders, navigate a year-long process with the occasional help of the gardener and under the watchful eyes of the local residents.

For decades, Theo Jansen has toiled on the beaches of the Netherlands in his quest to make his beloved Strandbeests self-sufficient. But what happens when, as the artist pursues his dream to create new life, he starts to feel his own slipping away?

In collaboration with Timur Shabaev

Marieke and Sharan are intersex: born with a body that does not fit into the normative definitions of male or female. During their first meeting, they discover that the things that marked their childhoods have happened to them both: hospital visits, operations, and silence because what they are must remain a secret. The film follows Sharan and Marieke over the course of a year as they tell their secret to friends, comb through medical records, and discover things about themselves that they did not know before. Intimate images show the devastating effect of secrecy and medicalization on the lives of intersex people.

This docu fiction hybrid short film invites you to observe and reflect along a chance encounter between police, an artist, and two friends in public space. A spontaneous moment attached to a loaded location- exploring power, privilege, colonial pasts and present realities.

A former detective, Lloyd Brooks, goes to his weekly therapy appointment, where he describes his repetitive nightmare involving his wife, a man and a tragedy.

The animal experience of New Year's Eve fireworks is loud and clear, even without commentary. The increasing anxiety among animals as seen through the eyes of dogs sporting GoPro cameras.

A man riding his bike into the woods falls and discovers a mysterious box containing a camera and a set of tapes. Curious, he takes them home to watch.

This is a vintage stop-motion animation produced for Philips Radio. The concept was developed in 1948 and released in 1951. In a vintage sci-fi setting, a man jumps into his radio amplifiers and visits a fantastic fair that represents a "kermis" or "kermesse." He embarks on an extraordinary journey but realizes it was all just a dream. Or was it?

When you see Carlijn Kingma’s impressive artwork The Waterworks of Money, that efficiently illustrates the way the financial sector runs through everyday life, it’s hard to imagine how one would even begin creating something so highly detailed and intricate. But patience seems to be the keyword of this documentary portrait that follows Kingma from the inception of The Waterworks of Money to its display at the Biennale in Venice. Filmmaker Ariane Greep shows a master at work, slowly but surely refining her work into the masterpiece it became.

Photographer Anna Smeets makes reportages all over the world. When her mother dies unexpectedly, she returns to her native Limburg village for the funeral. She decides to move into her mother's studio on the edge of the Galgenven and make pictures in the vein of her mother's paintings of the village and its inhabitants and the unique nature surrounding it. While Anna thus tries to regain her identity, it turns out that part of that nature will have to yield to project developers' plans. A fierce battle flares up between Anna and large landowner Hyacint de Beaumont. The village, where many people depend on him, is divided. When Anna finally seems to be all alone, she receives help from unexpected quarters. This has dramatic consequences.

Seven brothers Grimm, all dressed similarly in a raincoat and hat, walk the street at night. One by one, they see something, which makes them invent a fairy tale.

Superman is a puffed person. When he flies, he goes flat.

Dad humour is declared a thing of the past at a fire station in Amsterdam, where diversity must be promoted and employees must learn to interact with each other anew. A witty and human film about finding yourself in a time of cultural upheaval where fires still need to be put out.

Growing up in a house of dreams, secrets and psychosis. There truly is 'No Place Like Home'...

One of five animated fairy tales with a twist.

In a dying world, a scared stone clings desperately to the place he knows. Until the ground beneath him starts to crumble...

A Dutch woman escapes the clutches of Islamic State with her three-year-old daughter. On the bus from the Turkish border town Adana to Istanbul, she finds it hard to trust her fellow travellers. What does this man want who comes to bum a cigarette? Or that nice lady in the toilet? Next, she arrives in Istanbul and another reality forces itself upon her.

Blender Studio’s 15th Open Movie: An uptight engineer gets an unwelcome visit from a enthusiastic wannabe-pilot, causing both of them to be launched into the air inside an out-of-control space shuttle.

23yo Bae, a pianist and hiphop artist, struggles with the loss of his hearing while trapped in a period piece anno 1743. Through an odd, feverish and dream-like shakespearian encounter with Ferdinand (his 'manager') and Amélie - a peer who apparently plays music closer to her heart - he learns how to get rid of the darkness in his inner zone. He slowly finds his way back to his present day self and learns to come to terms with his handicap. This is a freely interpreted short music film built around 3 music videos ('Freneny', 'Amélie' and 'Zo Zijn') based on the true events and memories of Dutch musician sor (Rosario Mussendijk) who became deaf instantly one day due to a rare condition.

Documentary about the process of socialist transformation initiated by the Unidad Popular government, a review of its difficulties and achievements, on the eve of the parliamentary elections of March 1973.

An open air cinema on the dry bottom of a lake in the south of Bosnia and Herzegovina opens a window to a silent past. A fisherman shares his associative reflections on found footage films shot by tourists traveling to the former Yugoslavia in the sixties and seventies. Via poetic, hesitant and sometimes hilarious remarks on both the people and the animals appearing on the screen, he creates a touching insight into a complex past.

A short film about the director's expectations of being gay. Why do so many people focus on the sex between two men? When you come out of the closet, do you have to have a lot of sex with a lot of men or is there still a possibility for a cozy life?

After Russia started a fully-fledged war against Ukraine, the state's repressive machine against its own civil society started spinning with even greater velocity and the law system, which barely functioned before, eventually turned into a mechanism of abuse and brutality.

The miracle of life takes place to the tune of the drinking song from Gustav Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde. The game of love between man and woman as a prelude to the creation of new life: the birth and growth of Janneke, Gerrit van Dijk’s daughter.

Key figures reflect on the 20-year journey towards independence. Surinamese politicians Henck Arron, Jagernath Lachmon, Jules Sedney, along with former Dutch minister Jan Pronk, share their personal experiences and insights in pursuing their ideals.