Discoveries from Netherlands World Cinema

In this duo theatre program, the two old friends and frequent collaborators Harrie Jekkers and Koos Meinderts tell about their friendship and the songs they wrote together.

Lovable Amsterdam street urchin, 11 year old Ciske is nevertheless much in need of love as the Dutch 1984 title suggests. He is a scamp with a heart of gold. He causes havoc in the classroom pouring ink over his teacher yet when a polio-crippled boy joins the class Ciske is one of the only children to befriend him and is bullied as a result. His mother works in a bar and Ciske helps out often late into the night - his father is at sea and his mother supplements her income with prostitution. Ciske is also a very angry young man and he smoulders with rage at life's injustices.

At 15, John and Nicolas decide to learn about love together; Matteo falls in love with the village priest; and Gabriel secretly draws naked men... Seven European shorts on the theme of homosexuality and early teenage love, selected by the Marais Film Festival.

De Kampioenen travel to France to play a friendly soccer match against the team of one of Boma's business partners. What had to become a nice holiday, ends up totally different than De Kampioenen expected.

Short film by Adriaan Lokman

The film Sugnu Sicilianu unfolds like a series of flashbacks through time, connecting memory and dreams. This film is a journey through inheritance, where histories are both confronted and reshaped. Sugnu Sicilianu questions heritage, family, and identity through a return to the places that once tied me and my family to our roots.

A hotel guest turns slowly turns insane when his complaints about the poor services aren't resolved.

Sam starts working at Spoetnik, a clandestine chips stand named after its specialty. Right across the street is a brothel with an alluring girl who evidently needs Sam’s help.

Three impoverished men find a laptop with different kinds of crime records. With that they open Pandora's box, which will change their lives completely.

Belgium, 1978. Katja, Roxy, and a group of other lively girls are too young for love, but still they are almost mothers. In a hidden location, pregnant teenage girls await the birth of their babies in secret. Some want to put their mistake behind them as soon as possible, but Katja, herself an orphan, clearly wants something different: she longs to have her own little baby. During the long wait, the girls share each others joys and sorrows. They form close friendships and distract themselves with strange games, until the bubble bursts, and Katja becomes painfully aware of the plans that the nuns are making behind their backs. She is not going to let this happen to her baby

Short film made in response to public concern about the consequences of swine fever. The location is a slaughterhouse. A place where the dead pig is normal, where the pig becomes meat. This graduation film was awarded the Citroën Award and the Golden Flame in 1998.

A retired police detective sets out to find his missing granddaughter.

The depressed Cayden is being haunted by a sinister entity. This entity is troubling him in his daily routine: during his economy lectures, walking on the street and, most importantly, at home. Cayden wants to escape this traumatic cycle, and eventually falls for his overly optimistic friend Danny, who offers him the possibility to join a mysterious motorcycle gang under the leadership of the enigmatic Jansen.

After 20 years, Pierre and Claire's neighbors decide to move to Provence for good and sell their house to François and Hilda. Under the motto "better a good neighbor than a distant friend," Pierre and Claire try to befriend their new neighbors, but François and Hilda have a very different view of neighborly love...

Short documentary about life at camp Westerbork, based on the diary of the journalist Philip Mechanicus, supplemented with images by Rudolf Breslauer. Comments from the historian Jacques Presser. Mechanicus' diary starts on Friday 28 May 1943 and ends on Monday 28 February 1944, five days before he is put on a transport to Auschwitz where he is murdered seven months later (12 October) by the Nazis.

A photographer travels around the world. In Amsterdam, where he lives, he meets Iris, who is ten years younger. He is fascinated by her and slowly their relationship grows. Even though they are passionate about each other, their lifestyle and vision on the world appear to be too differentiated.

A piece of news, delivered by two officers in a police car, changes the lives of a family forever. As the journey to track down the next of kin progresses, the vehicle becomes more and more crowded with family members, picked up from home, work, the hairdressers. As they sit in the backseat, alone with their thoughts, what they thought they knew about life, about relationships, has been violently altered.

Gerri and Anneke, who is now heavily pregnant, have sold their flat in Eindhoven and are temporarily living in a bungalow park. To earn some extra money to buy their dream home, they decide to participate in a reality show about their lives. When it turns out that Gerri and Anneke are not providing any spectacular television, director Reggi intervenes to save the show. His influence puts a strain on Gerri and Anneke's relationship, which was already under high tension now that the birth is approaching.

When her husband Ted is put in jail Bibi suddenly needs to provide for herself and decides to contact fortune teller Madame Jeanette.

As an old man, Jan slowly begins to waste away in his retirement home. But during a day trip to the Dutch National Mobility Scooter Racing Championships, he rediscovers himself. There, he undergoes an inner journey that brings him to terms with time, through the past, the present, and the future.

When Wolf refuses to fight his best friend Alexander during a weekly boxing match, the whole village turns against him. He tries to convince Alexander to join him leaving the village, but his overly romantic message runs into a wall.

A poetic coming-of-age story as a teenage boy explores love.

If Sidik manages to spot a leopard in his beloved mountains of Kurdistan, the area can be declared a protected nature reserve. Will that finally bring peace?

On a voyage into the dark, we follow a man portraying an intens dialogue with the subconscious. A vignette into the process of looking inward, evaporates the ego and listens to what wants to be heard, on the road to letting go. A requiem for the death of the self.

Three Belgian friends with Arabic roots come into possession of a bomb. Nobody knows where it came from, but they have to get rid of it. Meantime the biased suspicion of some local workers is turning into aggression and getting them deeper into trouble.

In order to get more customers to their rural inn, Karel and Truus have come up with a stunt. Karel will beat the record for being buried alive. After 124 days the media finally show up.

Performance Ji Youn Kang (sound) and a.o. Nan Wang, Lichun Tseng, Judith van der Made, Esther Urlus (2026, 35 min, 5x 16mm film looping + 2x diy slide projectors)

Whether it's a once in a lifetime television audition or a gruelling boxing competition, for these young women the chance to shine is sometimes worth the risk.

During a fencing camp thirteen-year old Puck struggles to feel connected to her rapidly changing body.

Three balding brothers travel to Istanbul to get a hair transplant. Stuck with each other in a hotel far from home, their insecurities grow faster than their hair.

A woman writes a letter and looks back on the most significant cigarettes in her life.

Marie Killer has been in a passionate relationship with Nathan Trentelo, the man of her life, for over ten years. When she returns to his life after a four-week absence, she discovers that he has decided to cut her out of his life without any warning. However, Marie is not going to take this lying down.

A young traveler picks up and elderly woman on his way from Holland to Monte Carlo.

Documentary that looks back at 35 years of Dutch cinema, with Paul Verhoeven and others.

On November 17, 2003, Maja Bradaric was strangled by three of her friends. She was just 16. Maja's intimates ask themselves why none of them saw it coming.

Having just moved to Amsterdam, Lou prepares her new apartment that she will share with her partner, Joel. For now though, Joel is on a trip with an intimate other. Confronted with the complexities of her non-monogamous relationship, Lou shifts her gaze to the rhythms of her new city.

Three foxes - Hunter, Scar, and Red - live on a Serengeti-like landscape on a rewilded part of the world's largest man-made island in the Netherlands. Through the eyes and voice of Hunter, we follow how she grows up from being a 6 week old fox cub to raising cubs of her own among thousands of wild horses, deer, and cattle that roam wild and undisturbed by humans just 20 miles from Amsterdam.

On the day of his forced retirement, a grumpy school principal decides, together with his neighbour, to search for a wife on the Internet...

Becoming the best version of yourself, the goal everyone consciously or unconsciously strives for. Everything can always be better, more beautiful, bigger, faster. Nowadays silence is the only time we can relax, but the world we live in is actually never quiet. There are noises everywhere and excitement everywhere. What can we learn from silence? In this film, a group of young adults spend a weekend together in silence at a Zen Buddhist monastery. They drink tea, clean, walk around and meditate together. The birds whistle just a little louder, the cutlery and plates sound like a radio play while eating, and in the wind you can find different kinds of noise. As time passes, you sink, along with them, deeper and deeper into that clear silence. 'You Are Already Here' takes you into a meditative experience in which you can ask yourself where you are going, and more importantly, where you are now.

Set in a confined world outside time, East of Noon is the fable of prodigy Abdo (19) who uses music to rebel against his elders: showman Shawky (70), an eccentric showman who rules with a mix of performance and fear, and storyteller Jalala (75), who provides relief with stories of the Sea, which no one else has seen. East of Noon is a satire on the inner workings of an ailing autocracy and its inherent vulnerability to youth’s unchained vision of a better world.

Based on the novel by Albert Camus

Bob and Greta De Jaegher are happily married for 40 years. They can look back on a rich and fulfilled life. Their 2 sons Steve and Carl have a successful life as well. Steve is a talented and recognized film-director and Carl is a promising cook. Steve's wife Billie wrote a bestseller about happiness and wants to start a family with her husband. Brother-in-law Rik, who works at the zoo, tries to pick up his life with his kids, after his wife died two years ago. To mark their 40th wedding anniversary, Bob and Greta organize a family weekend. They want to announce something very important. Their new plans are a sure hit for the family De Jaegher, but that's not the only thing - What had to be a cheerful gathering of the family, turns out to be something nobody expected.

In a bleak dystopian world, a brother and sister have to fend for themselves, finding fleeting moments of joy on a dilapidated carousel.

Mountain climbers achieve fame, despite the many deadly accidents. The image is partly created by the climbers themselves. But because of the difficult circumstances at these great heights, it is practically impossible to find out if all these incredible stories are actually true. In April 2014, Dutch climbers start an expedition the sixth highest mountain in the world. Investigative journalist Geertjan Lassche closely follows the group. How ruthless do you need to be? And are these mountain climbers really as arrogant as they seem to be? The closer the group gets to the top, the more we learn about all kinds of universal dilemmas. And then, even the mountain itself turns against the climbers.

Absurd comedy about a lonely man who lives in a cuckoo clock.

Recording of Wim Sonneveld’s successful one man show ‘An Evening with Wim Sonneveld’, which ran from 1964 to 1966.

De Kampioenen are about to celebrate their 25th anniversary and want their long-lost original trainer to join them. Meanwhile, an old enemy is released from prison and enters a quest for revenge.

TV-adaptation of the fourth solo show by Dutch comedian Louise Korthals. In her own words: "This show is about what we pass on to the next generation."

David finds himself with an unsatiable craving for ice cream. He embarks on a quest to find some.

Registration of the sixth theatre program by the Dutch comedy duo (Niels) Van der Laan & (Jeroen) Woe.

Batavia, 1946. In the heated aftermath of war and under colonial tension, a young Dutch soldier gets pulled into the world of an enigmatic Indonesian woman and a corrupt American diplomat. What begins as a search for a long-lost family heirloom, unfolds into a deadly game of identity, power, and betrayal – where everyone clings to their own reality, and the truth keeps changing.

Vera is a fun-loving 23-year-old until her entire life is upended after an accident leaves her in a wheelchair. Struggling to cope with her new reality, she meets Xander, who helps to show her that being in a wheelchair doesn’t mean she’s stuck.

A Dutch family on their last full day of their camping holiday in France. On the moment that nobody wants to join father Aad on the traditional hiking tour, everybody experiences their own adventure.