Discoveries from Netherlands World Cinema

The devil has arrived in Amsterdam, hell-bent on bombarding a poor girl, a wealthy banker and a young painter with great misfortune. This film is presumed lost.

A collection of classic fairy tales such as Cinderella and Little Red Riding Hood, with a nod and a wink to contemporary times. The film offers characters such as the 'ugly sisters' Paris and Hilton, an updated relationship between Red Riding Hood and the big bad wolf, homosexuality and corny humor. Also musical scenes in which the characters sing the songs of current pop artists as well as many popular Dutch hits.

A film about the dark side of existence as an individual in everyday society. A portrait of a number of people in confrontational situations. People who struggle with themselves and with life.

Ludwig is an aging hotel inspector who’s become bored with his luxury lifestyle. When he meets a young woman in Paris, it might just be the wake-up call he needed.

Siljan is a young writer who accidentally discovers that he is adopted. After a confrontation with his adoptive parents, he embarks on a search for his roots, a quest that leads him to his native Macedonia. What awaits him here is the last thing he expects.

In the shadow of the feared 'millennium bug', a Surinamese family navigates New Year's Eve 1999, discovering that facing their fears and having difficult conversations leads to new beginnings, rather than the end of the world.

A modern gay love story, extending over a single day. Robert and Frank are going to work out their problems and find love.

256 frame enlargements of a continuous dance movement were dissected into 16 segments, each consisting of 16 frames. These segments were rearranged and rephotographed frame-by-frame. The resulting synthetic composition of movement was rephotographed off a screen running at twice its normal speed in order to accelerate the final film.

A documentary about the fascinating and complicated process of the rebuilding of Holland's most famous museum, The Rijksmuseum. The film shows the people behind the scenes during the years of demolition, restoration, and political and financial debate. We witness their efforts, joys and struggles with one goal in common: the love of art.

When Claire returns from Burkina Faso, she is totally transformed and her girlfriends barely recognize her. Cheryl discovers Martin is cheating on her yet again and for her, this time it's the last straw: she files for divorce. Anouk, also unhappy with her love life, threatens to develop an eating disorder. Roelien, however, accepts Evert's wedding proposal. Then, a fatal and thoroughly bizarre accident transports the girlfriends to the snowy mountaintops of Austria...

14-year-old Jimmy (played by Tyrell Williams) practices kung fu. For the lion dance, which is performed out on the streets, he is determined to hold the head of the lion. But when his teacher, the sifu, announces the new crew, his dream comes crashing down. He has to make do with the tail end, while the talented newcomer Li Jié (Haye Lee) is given the coveted place. Jimmy does all he can to become number one and earn his place up front with the head. But this means he has to defeat a number of annoying bullies, convince the sifu of his qualities and, especially, overcome himself.

The Chinese restaurant is empty. The cage full of exotic birds is wide open. Two friends, Jason and Kevin, see this as an opportunity to catch and sell them. But catching these animals isn’t as simple as it seems.

Nassim Guammaz wants to become the best skateboarder in the world. His father says he has to choose a secure future, and the boys from his neighbourhood think skateboarding is not for Moroccans. But Nassim follows his heart and does what he wants. This summer, for the first time, he is not going to Morocco with his family, but staying in the Netherlands to compete in important skateboard competitions.

Luuk, mid-twenties, has the time of his life until he is confronted with the rough reality off the beaten track of the backpacker trails. A raw road movie about three young friends looking for authenticity between the temples, partying backpackers and an illegal brothel in the South of America.

A young, unhappily married moslim woman works at a call centre, conducting telephone surveys. In this impersonal way, she gets in touch with a single man with a sagging couch and a lack of energy. Due to a barking dog, the telephone contact between this unlikely twosome is intensified and eventually even results in a meeting.

'Zandvoort in an uproar! On Saturday morning at roughly 10 o’clock, with beautiful weather and calm seas, a Frenchman sat in a beach chair to gaze upon the magnificent view that the sea always affords, until he slowly began to fall asleep’ So begins a report in the ‘Zandvoortsche Courant’ of July 25, 1905. The article explains how the man was faced with the oncoming tide, and – to the amazement of the audience – took off his trousers to prevent them from being ruined by the saltwater. While trying to escape from the policeman who had rushed to the scene, he jumps into a passing car, and hides out in a small changing cabin. Eventually he's nabbed by the police. Accompanied by a band and a large crowd, he is escorted to the police station. The article ends by saying that ‘Messrs. Alberts Frères’ had staged the whole incident for a film in which two of the most popular genres of that period - the locally-shot film and the chase film – would be combined.

Peter is a young journalist who lives and works in Amsterdam, a city with quite a high density of cafés. Peter has a dynamic personality, perhaps a bit too dynamic for himself and his surroundings. He is unaware of the impact his behavior and drinking habits have on others. This leads to conflicts, even with his loyal girlfriend Nanny and his best friend Harry. Will Peter ultimately choose love and friendship or his addiction?

Hans is an imaginative young boy whose life is forever changed by a summer job as a postman. During his responsible task, delivering a registered letter to the wealthy Nathalie de Laat, the boy falls in love with her. He chases the girl and spies on her villa. But shy as he is, Hans is not able to communicate normally with the girl. This will change when he starts sending her daily anonymous love letters in the form of a fairy tale. Nathalie's interest is aroused, but how will Hans make himself known as the sender?

A young man finds a sexy tilting pen with a living girl inside. They fall in love, but is their love strong enough to conquer the temptations of the outside world?

17-year-old Arend lives with his parents and hasn't come out of the closet yet. His first step into the gay world of love is on a date with handsome Michael, a guy he met on a gay dating site. They arrange to meet and Arend ventures to the other side of the country only to discover that Michael is not quite what he imagined.

The De Mol van Otterloo couple has the most important and largest private collection 17th-century Dutch and Flemish masters in the world. They collected from Ruisdael, Steen, Dou, Cuyp, Potter, Lievens, Hals and yes, also a Rembrandt. There is millions of masterpieces on the walls of their villa in Massachusetts. But what do you do with such a collection? Together with the friendly couple Weatherbie, who also built up a special art collection, they decide that their collections should stay together after their death. The result is an art gift that is unparalleled.

The indomitable urge of the human spirit comes face to face with the societal pressures that keep young women's wants, bodies and desires under wraps in these short stories set amongst nature.

Elvy is making every effort to win the Future Fashion Award in Ibiza. She meets a lot of special people, from world-famous DJs and stressed-out Beach Club owners, to fashion influencers and the daughter of a famous fashion icon. It will be the adventure of her life, but in the end it’s very different from what she had imagined...

Filmmaker Herbert Alfonso and musician Glenn de Randamie travel to Ghana to do some research on polyrhythm and the West-African spirituality. However, their trip to The Motherland makes them realize that home is more than the place where they grew up. Years later, they recollect their faded memories and try to find the right words to describe their intense experience. What exactly made them feel at home and lost at the same time? What does being home actually mean for a black individual from Europe while visiting Africa? Only abstractions seem to persevere as this colourful and musically-charged collage serves to show how a life-changing experience can leave us with nothing but fragments of a truth that has yet to be discovered.

As the whole country is preparing for the World Cup, all characters are confronted with the Dutch ‘Orange Fever’, which seems to either bring them closer together, or drift them apart.

With a heavily pregnant wife who does not take him seriously, a young Iranian man struggles with the choice between searching for a respectable job and the fast money he can make with pitbull fights. A short but ruthless downfall that qualifies a violent world, but at the same time shows that, once having descended the downward spiral, escape is almost impossible.

Folk comedy about a market vendor who happens to have a double who's a doctor causing the necessary confusion.

A short documentary funded by the Belgian Ministry for foreign affairs showing the manufacturing and transportation of Belgian locomotives.

"Conditions" - The improvisation-based performance was inspired by psychiatrists such as RD Laing (Family and Madness) and J. Foudraine (Who is of wood). The Werkteater played this performance 'in the den of the lion': in psychiatric institutions for patients and carers. This led to very intensive and adventurous performances in which 'a lot' always happened. Afterwards the discussions sometimes ran high, but even during the performance the audience sometimes mixed themselves in the scenes.

Two men have an appointment in the abandoned warehouse where they used to play as kids. As they wait, they think back about their childhood.

On the verge of getting married to Marijke, young and insecure detective Jozef is assigned the case of a murdered factory girl. His relationship is threatened when he becomes madly infatuated with Carmen, the alluring prime suspect.

A queer comedy horror about accidental death, interfering ghost hunters and how joy can be found despite the hand the (after)life might deal you.

Sinterklaas and the Pieten have a big problem. The castle of Sinterklaas is about to collapse. It must be demolished. That is why Sinterklaas and the Pieten are forced to stay at a campsite. Even Hugo Hogepief is at a loss, because no castle means no presents and gingerbread cookies for the children. Even though Kim Kado, Marco Marsepein and Willem Wortel try their utmost, there is a huge chance that the Sinterklaas party will not happen. But is the castle of Sinterklaas really about to collapse or is it a cunning plan by Stan & Olivier? Kikkie and Paco don't trust everything and start an investigation. Will they manage to save the Sinterklaas party?

Van Duylen, representative of a diamond syndicate, brings to Amsterdam the Koh-I-Noor II , the largest diamond ever found. In one of the city's oldest diamond-cutting establishments it is cleft and the nine small stones are polished. Escorted by detectives, Van Duylen takes the stones home and puts them in his burglar-proof safe. He tells his wife that its doors are electrically charged and that anyone opening them in the wrong way will immediately be electrocuted. Two suspicious persons, Jack the Acrobat and the lion-tamer Feenstra, prowl around Van Duylen's villa, inspecting the doors and windows.

Sunset from a Rooftop takes place in Belgrade. While the city is being hit by NATO bombings, Ivana is preparing herself for a night out while telling her boyfriend the news of her pregnancy.

Dutch comedian Youp van 't Hek attempts to see the humor in the chaos that was the year 2020.

"For more than ten years, Algeria has been living a slow war, a war without a front line but having caused more than 100,000 deaths. It is this desert that Zina and Kamel – two young Algerians sometimes hallucinated and joyful, sometimes dejected and serene – will want to travel one last time before leaving it for elsewhere. Road Movie on the territories of a city, Algiers whose construction sites are in decline. Roma wa la n'touma will show that fleeing abroad is not is not a refusal of combat, but an obscure struggle against assignment. Tariq Teguia

Family, friends and acquaintances of recently deceased twenty-something Tobias come together after the funeral to share their loss. Tobias’ three best friends subsequently stay together into the wee hours, hoping to reach some sort of acceptance.

3 generations of filmmakers tell a story about Brussels, 3 stories settled in the rue Saint Quentin, a forgotten street somewhere in the shadow of the European administration area.

Nine-year old Andreas Decker is the new kid in town. He tells his class that he has lived all over the world on account of his parents being top scientific researchers. Yet classmate Vero finds Andreas's workaholic parents really weird. She suggests to spy on them. When Andreas overhears their conversation about conquering the world and becoming leaders, their can only be one conclusion for the baffled children: Andreas's parents are aliens.

Kurdish Iranian filmmaker Beri Shalmashi travels from the Netherlands to the border with Iran in Iraqi Kurdistan, where she encounters activists who participated in the protests that were sparked by the death of Jina Amini in Tehran in September 2022. She explores first hand accounts of the current uprising and life as a Kurdish person under the oppressive Islamic regime. What is boiling at the edge of the revolution?

In a desolate landscape a disillusioned artist meets a sober geologist, and quickly they form a strong connection. Their lives seem temporarily idyllic until the real world sticks its head up again.

An elderly man pines away in a nursing home. His family calls on him out of a guilty conscience, but they try to get away from the stuffy atmosphere as soon as possible. The old man obliges them and behaves unresponsive. But as soon as everybody is gone, he smiles contented while softly speaking to his canary Arie. The human form the bird suddenly assumes is the kick-off for an adventure.

Johan van der Keuken explains, "Some fifteen filmmakers were asked to make a film series in a relay style for a very popular variety program on Dutch television: each new program was to start from the last image of the previous program, developing the story from that image. It was necessary to work according to codes of the crime thriller. I 'sabotaged' these codes, following a close-up of a pistol, inherited from my predecessor, by a series of comic observations of my cat, accompanied by a text on the need to innovate methods of expression and communication in cinema."

A documentary about the creation of the Efteling attraction PandaDroom.

De Boer's own film adaptation of his series of four plays about the brothers Doc and Kil and their willing sister Gina, who maintain their own codes in the face of the bourgeois outside world until death literally follows.

The lonesome construction worker Carl gets into a relation with Flicka, a girl inside a computer program.

From the filmmaker's perspective, we follow the process of a possible feature film about a photographer (Lea) tasked with capturing the energy transition in Amsterdam's harbor area. This brings up a flood of memories and associations. What do you do with what hasn't gone well in your life? How well can you know someone dear to you? Filmmaker and character turn out to coincide more and more during the process.

An almost dialogueless, poetic impression of an insecure teenager’s dilemma. Alexander spends his first holiday alone in an old beach cabin. Longing for affection, but searching for his identity, he stays inside. From the cabin, he watches the people on the beach. On a diving board, in the middle of the sand, he spots someone who is making some dance moves. Hesitant at first, but increasingly uninhibited, Alexander mimics him, which yields a cautious dance duet at a safe distance. Will he dare to make the next move?

Aboard the cruise ship 'Rederij de Romantiek', Captain Hartman and his lovely assistant Jitske reign supreme. Ravi, a smart 11-year-old girl, and Benja, her stubborn 8-year-old stepbrother with whom she does not get along at all, go on a cruise vacation with their parents as a blended family. The children are far from enthusiastic. The participation of father Orlando and mother Maartje in a wedding contest on board the ship is supposed to bring the family closer together. But not everyone on board the ship has equally good intentions. Onno and Ted, cleaners on the ship, together with head security guard Nora, have a little business in valuable items that they steal from passengers...

What happens when a man meets the woman of his dreams, and it turns out she wants to be Just Friends?