Discoveries from Netherlands World Cinema

This film was part of Kyulim Kim’s time-based installation 600 Minutes (2025), based on the restoration of Rembrandt's The Night Watch. The painting darkened over time due to pigment discoloration. Similarly, 1950s–70s film footage often fades to magenta as yellow and cyan dyes deteriorate. This color loss reflects both the material fragility of film and the fading of social infrastructures once captured in it.

Just as he does every year, Gerrie flies from sunny Portugal for a three-day visit to the Netherlands, the drab country of his birth. He has his usual errands to run and he visits his doctor for his annual check-up, accompanied by his eccentric grown-up son, Dick.

Telvisie registration of the play of the same name, written by Don Duyn. The performance 'Den Uyl, of De Vaandeldragers' arose from Don Duyns' desire to take a closer look at the passionate ex-Prime Minister Joop den Uyl and the time in which he was glorious in relation to the present day.

Enjoy the party of the world famous Alpaca's Leo, Lea and Luis.

The journey of a young man on his path towards enlightenment.

During class Eddy is daydreaming about his girlfriend Véronique. When school is out he hopes to be living his daydream with her.

Nancy has to protect her younger sister when the game Hangman takes a deadly turn.

One year after the fatal accident that took away their son Floris when he was 11, the distress of the Mensch family is still visible. Father, mother and their daughter Sacha (now 17) each come to terms with the loss in their own way and become completely alienated from each other. The mother's bouts of depression shape the oppressive mood. The introvert Sacha suffers in these surroundings. She is also about to sit her exams. The truck-driver who killed Floris has been trying to contact the family for a year, but mother anxiously hides his letters. She wants nothing to do with the murderer. Sacha has reached the stage when she wants to know exactly what happened, especially as she, as elder sister, feels guilty about his death. She starts looking for the driver.

Human rights violations and onlyfans streamers, unboxing and sniping, #pewpew and #militarycurves, war and ahegao.

A good bourgeois couple have adopted Monneke, a country boy. Maybe they should not have as their peaceful life is turned upside down by the antics of the little rascal.

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 searching, melancholy Dutch documentary about the lives of four classical musicians who won the prestigious Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels, a victory that did not prove a guaranteed ticket to the top of the classical music world.

An elderly judge crosses paths with a young delinquent who looks exactly like his dead son. He decides to help him where he can but the boy betrays his trust by escaping prison and turning to crime once again. He flees to the house of the judge who supplies him with an alibi for a robbery turned murder. The judge knows he is putting his career at stake but he feels it is worth it for the boy’s sake.

Short documentary showing the chain of production in Belgium.

In revolutionary Cairo, the filmmaker tries to let go of objects accumulated over generations. He films inside the huge flat that used to belong to his parents, with an interior that dates back to the years preceding yet another revolution.

Two Amsterdam window workers are rudely interrupted by the ugliest sight imaginable: The Mayor’s Erotic Prison, a building where the evil city government wants to lock away sex workers for good! Eww! Luckily their domme friend knows the perfect solution: just sit on it!

A film about our relationship to the other and the patterns we develop within these relationships. Rituals we use to shape our lives, or patterns we get stuck in and lead to stagnation. The film is located in a second-hand store. A place full of objects; bits of life left behind by their owners. During the night we discover fragments of stories that could have been lived by all of us.

Horses mirror our non-verbal behaviour, which makes them perfectly suited as 'mirrors' in therapeutic sessions. In this short documentary, director Eva Sjerps shows from up close, focusing on the senses, what these sessions with youngsters look like. How do horses react to the children? And what does the horses’ reaction do to the adolescents? During these interactions, the horses mirror the behaviour of young people who contend with various problems. In the process, they are able to recognise their underlying feelings and behavioural patterns and can subsequently change them.

Everybody knew Marco Bakker as Holland’s most cherished operetta prince. Until that one moment in 1997. Everything changed. How do you keep going? In this intimate portrait, we get to know a completely different side of Bakker. For example, it turns out the singer has mastered not only the ‘light frivolous pieces’, but also the demanding classics, and together with his partner Willeke van Ammelrooij, he is forced to swap their fairy-tale castle for a humble terraced house in his native village Beverwijk.

In this mesmerizing collage of silent Italian melodrama, found-footage filmmaker Peter Delpeut (Lyrical Nitrate) affectionately captures the spirit of the World War One-era cinema diva. In all-but-lost gems such as La donna nuda (1914), and Tigre reale (1916), superstars such as Lyda Borelli and Pina Menichelli portrayed heroines teetering dangerously between defiant indulgence in sexual passion and hysterical remorse at their own cruelties. Delpeut’s inventive celebration of Black Romanticism is both striking and heartbreaking in its composition—a beautifully woven narrative of tempted fate and self-torment, elegantly guided by Loek Dikker’s original score. Zeitgeist Films is proud to present Delpeut’s stunningly experimental work in all its heaving bosomed, luridly tinted glory.

Registration of the sixth comedy special by the Dutch comedian Henry van Loon. When Henry van Loon got his dog Jannie, a global pandemic broke out not long after and he was suddenly stuck indoors with that nervous little guy. His daughter was born in the middle of that pandemic. A tough time, that's for sure. But also a time for reflection. Time to think about what he really wanted. And you know what that was? Away! On the road again.

The celebration of Saint Nicholas Eve is once again in danger this year. Will the Club succeed in solving the problems, and can St. Nicholas' eve still be celebrated this year?

Registration of the first theatre program by the Dutch comedy duo (Erik) van Muiswinkel and (Diederik) van Vleuten. Two men visit the Montignac caves, famous for their prehistoric rock paintings. Diederik van Vleuten thinks he has ended up in the Womb of Western Culture, Erik van Muiswinkel thinks his five-year-old son paints better. They don't agree.

Sinterklaas and his Pieten are on their way to the Netherlands, on their new ship Pakjesboot 13. However, the ship is way too heavily loaded and sinks in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. The Sint and his Pieten scurry of to a deserted island and luckily all manage to reach it alive. But, how will they now reach the Netherlands...?

Registration of the Dutch musical 'Maskerade'. The story takes place in 1910 and is about Bastiaan de Geer (Jos Brink) who, in order to impress Miss Mariëtte van Heusden Hurgonje, tells everyone that he is of noble descent, reluctantly helped by his friend, couturier Sandor Petri (Frank Sanders). Because Bastiaan's mother is actually a housekeeper for Sandor Petri, Bastiaan disguises himself as Dowager de Geer in order to keep up appearances for Mariëtte. The masquerade is further intensified and Bastiaan is forced to also pretend to be an ex-resident of the Indies and as his own butler.

What if from one day to the next, you’re no longer seen, but instead are stared at? The leading characters in this multi-layered film have ended up in a new world where suddenly nothing seems to align. In their new lives in the Netherlands, they unintentionally provoke reactions on a daily basis. Even after many years, they still hear the same questions over and over again: where are you from, do you speak Dutch, do you tan in the sun?

In the course of four seasons we follow the process as Maurits mourns the death of his mother. His intensely sad father, a restorer of paintings, is not able to offer him any solace. Maurits denies his mother's death and withdraws to the flood plains of the river. There he meets Moniek. During their journey of discovery through the plains, their tender friendship turns into love. But Maurits anger and sorrow sometimes turn to extreme emotions and that frightens Moniek. A dead dog takes them over the top and Moniek never wants to see him again.

In 1974, two Dutch filmmakers made a film about two Palestinian families and their desire for recognition. At the end of the civil war in Lebanon, they returned to see if their friends had survived. Most did, but the years of fighting left an indelible mark on their lives. As the Palestinians say : “It is a long war struggle”.

Billie Turf is a student at Dennenheuvel boarding school. According to his teacher Kwel, he is unreliable, a good-for-nothing, and a liar who can only think about good food. Due to his boorish behavior during various activities, such as training for sports days, washing a car, and going on a fishing trip with his teacher, Billie repeatedly comes into conflict with the boarding school's management, which results in him receiving the same punishment every time: cleaning duty and going to bed without dinner. He is only resourceful and clever when it comes to obtaining food. His good nature is finally revealed when, together with Jossie, the director's niece, he manages to find the kidnapped student Kareltje and the ransom money.

When Abraham, a dissolute accordion player with a sheep and a massive hangover arrives in a peaceful rural town, the lives of the inhabitants will never be the same again.

One warm summer night, in a working-class area of a big city, a group of teenagers sits on a square. Jill, a teen girl, undergoes her first sexual experience as an everyday banality.

Mama’ku: During a trip to Indonesia, dancer Cheroney Pelupessy and her taciturn mother find a way together to come to terms with the mother’s repressed past, marked by migration, domestic violence, and intergenerational trauma. The new documentary by Sven Peetoom (Tussen Wal en Schip – Geruisloos Indisch).

In every leaf, the infinite unfolding. In every creature, your higher self looking back.

Registration of the fourth comedy special by the Dutch comedian Ronald Goedemondt, in which Goedemondt explores the theme conformism.

A documentary about the economic plan of the last dictatorship that investigates the role of the IMF and international banking in the policies implemented by José Alfredo Martínez de Hoz, Minister of Economy under the Military Junta, and the multi-million-dollar debt and devastating impact it had on local industry. Filmed during the first months of Raúl Alfonsín's administration, the film exposes the involvement of the business community in the persecution of workers and how illegal repression was a necessary instrument for the implementation of a neoliberal economic model that would generate significant increases in unemployment and poverty.

It is 1946. Recently repatriated Paula is trying to feel at home in Friesland after her experiences in a Japanese internment camp. She is taken in by family she has never met before. Her presence is tolerated, but not fully accepted. Suspicion grows among the family when, since her arrival at the potato farm, brown rot is found on one of the potatoes.

In 2024, the iconic Rietveld Schröder House in Utrecht will celebrate its 100th anniversary. Gerrit Rietveld designed and built the house in close collaboration with his secret lover and creative partner Truus Schröder. Rietveld himself did not build his houses for eternity; he thought a life cycle of 50 years was sufficient. But the current owners of houses designed by Rietveld think differently about this. They pull out all the stops to renovate and preserve their Rietveld houses.

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.

The filmmaker interviews still surviving residents of Las Hurdes, where Buñuel shot a controversial documentary almost 70 years ago, and compares the area as shown in that work to the way it seems now.

De Oplossing? is a movie about the dangers of racism and fascism. A group of Dutch young people is influenced by an ultra right political party.

In Fur Girl, Famke Louise and animal activists Jenny and Thomas go to the interior of China where fur is "bred" and "harvested". It is not a harmless journey. They go undercover and visit indigenous fur breeders to see with their own eyes how the fur industry works.

When millennial Julia is forced to move back in with her boomer father Piet, the generational conflict is reflected in whether or not to cut down the old tree in front of the house.

Stones are at once the most foundational and the most overlooked parts of our lifeworld. When a retired nature documentary narrator passes a kidney stone, she decides to tell one more story about this forgotten world of stone . A hypnotic essay film asking urgent ecological questions, Apple Cider Vinegar takes the viewer on a journey meeting Palestinian quarry workers, passionate Britisch Geologist and People living on the lava fields of Fogo.

An adaptation of Oscar Wilde's Vera; or, The Nihilists.

A rich and extravagant Scottish Baron spends his time on outrageous cruise ships amongst romantic couples, wealthy families, hardworking staff and retired elderly. A floating micro-society appealing to some, revolting to others.

Bruno finds it very interesting that his father, Daan (35), shaves his beard and head before he leaves on a military mission. When Daan offers his son to shave him, Bruno finds it an offer he cannot refuse. Along with this intimate way of saying goodbye, we see what happens to Daan on his mission in Afghanistan through Bruno playing with his toy soldiers.

Rutger and Thomas are at their wits' end when their beloved dog Paco is suddenly kidnapped in a flying doghouse. Everyone thinks they did it themselves, but the mean Tiffy Woefels is behind it: she wants to make Paco a big star. Rutger and Thomas must prove that they are innocent and save Paco! They get help from an unexpected corner and go on an exciting and hilarious adventure full of action, friendship and barking heroes.

Four gay Indian friends share an unbreakable bond on a Dutch cricket field. But when one agrees to an arranged marriage in India, their chosen family begins to unravel.

During an intense emotional crisis towards the end of his life, Vincent van Gogh spent one year in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, a mental institution that exists to this day. The female patients who stay there now mostly spend their days painting, like Van Gogh used to. Here, Van Gogh painted many of his famous works and wrote numerous letters. In this exploratory documentary, the present-day patients write a letter back to him. Where and in what ways do they find comfort?