Discoveries from Netherlands World Cinema

Colourful, unpolished portrait of the Rotterdam theatre-maker Paul Röttger, whose work has been all about inclusivity for 30 years. The thread running through the film is rehearsals by Theater Babel Rotterdam, the theatre company of which he is director, that performs some 150 productions a year. Röttger previously headed the Rotterdams Centrum voor Theater and Theater Maatwerk (Rotterdam Centre for Theater and Custom-made Theatre). The documentary shows his ongoing search for equal artistic collaboration between people from a wide variety of genders, cultural backgrounds, physical and mental conditions, and professionalism.

Spiegl tells a universal story of fleeing, through an organic mix of road movie, opera, and re-enacted memories. Yitschak Spiegl was the foster daughter of a Czech mother, and was living as a woman when in 1988 he fled Communist Czechoslovakia. Fragments of his personal history emerge as he visits places in Austria with filmmaker Vita Soul Wilmering where he spent time as a refugee. Chance meetings with people on the street unintentionally form a recurring thread that links up themes of exclusion and pigeonholing, which shape the painful undertone of Spiegl’s life story.

Isa, a pregnant middle-aged woman, is clearing out her parental home, where her father recently passed away. She is surprised by a visit from her terminally ill mother, with whom she has had little contact since her childhood. The estranged relationship between them leads to a confrontation, in which years of unspoken feelings finally surface. As a result, Isa must make the difficult choice to let go of her mother.

In the middle of the Covid lockdown, two lonely souls meet up for a blind date in an abandoned nightclub. But during this riotous evening, dark secrets come to light and their date escalates into a fight to the death.

A group of teenagers struggle with their rapidly changing lives

A found-footage, hand manipulated, cameraless 35mm celluloid film.This collage film is about the perpetual image flood we receive daily. Loaded with iconographic images of consumerism and amusement. The film releases an overflow of our own popular culture to the viewer.

Freek de Jong's sixth election conference, De Loterij, is a cabaret-style commentary on the state of the country on the eve of the 2021 parliamentary elections.

Documentary about the Dutch politician Sigrid Kaag.

Documentary on Greenland.

Taken from a train window, Petronin imprinted manually a single image strip, using a shutterless camera, exposing it to a continuous influx of light. The result is the dissolution of the space between frames, elements of landscape losing their solidity.

Documentary about the Dutch national railways (NS), struggling to improve it's reputation.

Documentary.

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.

In 1968 Zwartjes was one of the first Dutch visual artists to make use of film: initially as a record of his performances, but quite soon after as an independent medium, perfectly suited to his way of creating visual art. Zwartjes did everything himself – camera, sound, editing and even the developing in the laboratory. He would work with non-professional actors selected from his circle of friends, and filmed in and around his own house. He particularly favoured editing his film ‘in the camera’ by switching the camera on and off while shooting. ‘My own motor system determined the film style,’ Zwartjes stated in an interview. ‘It never occurred to me to wonder: can this shot follow on after this one? If you start wondering about that you should be looking for another job straight away.’ This publication consists of a selection of photographs taken by Zwartjes during his years of filming and a short footage film on DVD from 1969.

In her psychoses, Gioia had her greatest dreams and darkest nightmares. But reality allows little room for imagination. A dance documentary on the border of delusion and reality.

Bob, Wendy and the amazing team of machines help everyone out in this fun collection of new adventures. By working together, they can get the job done! Scoop and Liftie discover that with a little help from their friends, they can do more than they thought. Krabbel learns that it's not just one machine that needs to be in the spotlight, but the whole team. And Dizzy causes chaos at the lighthouse when she shows off her spinning new wheelie skills. Luckily, Bob and the rest of the team are there to lend a hand, grab, crane, slider and scoop! Will you join us? • Liftie helps out • Krabbel plays a role • Scramblers stage surprise • Wendy's birthday party • Dizzy's wheelies

Leon tries to make the world a better place for his children.

Let the darkness empower those we took for granted.

We like to convince ourselves of things. Trivialities that bring some order to the chaos of our thoughts, things that make life a little more exciting. But what if these thoughts turn against us? What if we convince ourselves of things that aren't necessary? What if we become paranoid about that one unanswered text message, uncertain about the future of our clothing, and afraid that our hero status is unsustainable? It is these illusions that comedian Thomas Smith wants to expose and puncture. And he is looking for a useful answer to the question of life: what to do when you receive good news while you have a headache?

Jeroen's family is loaded with money and they deeply enjoy the benefits of the rich life, except for Jeroen. He is clearly not into this luxurious lifestyle and this results into serious tensions. He makes a harsh decision: he leaves his family and goes out on an unforgettable journey. During this journey he discovers that his family isn't that bad at all.

De Beveiligers is a documentary which follows several security people making sure the public is safe.

Mama Agatha is a 59-year-old Ghanaian woman who runs a bicycle training program for migrant and refugee women in the south of Amsterdam. A ‘community mother’ with a larger-than-life personality, she teaches a group of women from Pakistan, Morocco, Somalia, China and elsewhere the most basic Dutch skill: cycling.

To mark the century of film Geens and Lobet directed this homage to Belgian cinema in 101 fragments.

Famed Dutch photographer Ed van der Elsken documents the natural world as well as the local people in and around his hometown of Edam, the Netherlands.

Every scene of the film comprises a dialogue between a man and a woman. The dialogues are fragmentary, in other words, the dialogue in one scene does not tie in with that of the next. In addition there is no development in the relationship between the actor and the actress towards a happy or unhappy ending. The dialogues are not only of substantial interest; it is above all material for the actors. The film balances on the boundary between portraying an intimate relationship between a woman and a man and the intimacy in the acting between the actor and actress. When an actor or actress hardly has any words in a scene, he or she portrays loneliness; when he/she has a monologue, then the attention is focused on speaking the text, on (the reflection about) being an actor. (Wim Schlebaum

An animation about the dangers a path must overcome during its annual march to its birthplace.

The Wall is a film originally intended to be screened in the run-up to Belgium's national elections in the spring of 1968. In that year, the tensions between the Dutch- and French-speaking communities were marked by often violent demonstrations and the threat of splitting the country. The story plays with fact and fiction by interweaving found footage of news reports with staged scenes. The main character is the wall which, similar to the division of Berlin, is erected through the centre of Brussels. Although the film was made by the team that compiled cinema newsreels for the company Belgavox, the influence of Henri Storck—the pioneer of poetic realism in the Belgian documentary film—is omnipresent in the camerawork, framing and editing, as well as in the use of amateur actors and filming in the street.

A feature-length documentary ode to Dutch countryside youth culture.

Documentary by Ytzen Brusse from 1949 on the nearly extinct profession of the 'parlevinker'; grocers selling their goods from a boat in the canal. Filmed entirely in Amsterdam.

The residents of a flat building are completely self-absorbed and never look out their window to see a chicken frequently fluttering by. The chicken has a nest on the roof where she hatches her eggs. One day the eggs get stolen.

The first film Rekveld composed according to methods he still uses to structure films. Featuring images created by recording the movements of a tiny light source with extremely long exposure times, so it draws traces on the photographic emulsion. The light is part of a simple mechanical system that exhibits chaotic behaviour.

A short portrait of poet Bert Schierbeek, who reads from his poetry.

A disoriented man enters a bookstore/café/bedroom in this award-winning short sketch filmed in one shot.

Short comedic film about driving instructors.