Discoveries from Netherlands World Cinema

Remco Campert reads the first chapter aloud, with images of Campert walking and people picnicking on a summer day in the Vondelpark in Amsterdam.

Pro wrestler Julia rules the ring, while her younger sister Nina watches anxiously from the sidelines. Determined to make Julia feel truly seen, Nina picks up her camera and steps into her world, but soon realizes her own worries may stand in the way.

Two detectives get distracted whilst trying to solve a murder.

Young people who have to survive without a home base are helped on their way to a life on their own two feet at Wonen Met Kansen. Little by little, with trial and error, but with the rock-solid confidence that the supervisors have in them.

It can go fast. One moment you are tinkering with a moped in your over-complete shed, the other moment you become chief of an Indian tribe. But not before you, as a proud householder with extremely cozy children, have shown how hospitality is meant. In the meantime you play the lead in a musical. It could just be. At least, in the absurd universe of comedian, actor and vlogger Henry van Loon. And in his performance Sleutelmoment it could all happen at the same time.

Levi (17) lives with his parents in the village where he grew up. Recently he told his best friend Laura that he is not only attracted to girls, and that he is in love with his classmate Noah. Laura encourages him to tell this at home. Although Levi has already made a number of attempts, it didn't feel like the right time. When he finally succeeds, his parents seem to take it well. But will that remain the case when Levi is confronted with the reactions from his village? And how should he act with his love for his classmate Noah?

Registration of the pantomime show of the same name. A starving shipwrecked sailor is picked up by a rusty whaler. No one can imagine that this is the beginning of the end.

When the city of Kampen is threatened by terrorists, special agent Jos, from the division Code Kampen, is activated to eliminate them. Inhabitants of the city with special skills help him with his mission.

Fortunately, darts have enjoyed steadily growing popularity in recent years. Ever since Raymond van Barneveld won the Embassy World Championship for the first time in 1998, darts has been an integral part of the Netherlands. In the following years he managed to conquer many more tournament victories and make himself one of the greats in the darts world.

The sweet girl Cinderella has a hard life with her stepmother and stepsisters. They grant her no happiness and make her do all the dirty chores around the house. In her dreams, however, she is free and dreams of a happy life. When she falls in love with the prince during the Royal Ball and is given the chance to win his heart, she doesn't hesitate for a moment. But at the stroke of midnight, the spell will wear off, and she must leave the ball. Will she succeed in starting a new life?

Jip and Mijntje meet at a party organised by their mutual friend Lino. The sparks fly immediately and they grow closer as the months pass. Suddenly Jip gets the feeling that Mijntje doesn't really know them as well as they thought. Jip starts to doubt their connection and realises that their 'situationship' has reached a dead end.

live performance from The Script at Pinkpop festival 2023

Stage registration of the third comedy special by the Dutch comedian Yora Rienstra. When Yora Rienstra and her wife have a child with a donor, she must find her way in an uncharted role.

TV registration of Wim Kan's 1981 Dutch comedy show called 'In een Ommezien' (broadcast in 1984, a year after his death).

A meadow, a football. Dried sausages and a filthy dog. And Danny, who needs to fight back his father's fists once and for all.

Short film about the experience of taking psychoactive drugs. ‘I wanted to make a short documentary-style film about marijuana and hashish, psychoactive drugs that in 1955 were still relatively unknown to the general public. They were mainly used by a small group of artists, jazz musicians, intellectuals, and North Africans. I wanted to visualize the ritual of rolling and lighting up a joint, and then put a series of seemingly unrelated images next to each other to represent the feeling of being high. When the movie was finished, we took it to the festival for 16mm films at Cannes, and won the Golden Lion for ‘Best Use of Film Language’. (Shinkichi Tajiri, Tajiri, 1993)

From all directions gravity pulls on the shards of a breaking dinner plate. After stretching to their outer limits, elastic strings help the pieces move back towards their starting point. The pieces collectively form a self-reflecting structure, while at the same time expressing their individual qualities through movement, position and sound.

Ton and Ineke Korrel enjoy their warm afternoon soup when a man crashes down from the sky, in their garden. Ton sees a dangerous species lying in his garden, Ineke wants to help. The situation escalates. The couple will soon find out who their other half really is. Hopefully, before it's too late.

In all of Naples, photographer Oreste Pipolo is renowned for his wedding photographs. An album with the heavily accentuated romantic pictures of Pipolo is, like a copious dinner in an expensive hotel, an essential part of a successful wedding. If need be, every self-respecting bridal couple will spend their last savings to be able to engage Pipolo. In ORESTE PIPOLO, the city of Naples and in particular the Neapolitan wedding is the universe where Pipolo holds sway. We see him routinely handling nervous couples and making preparations for the ceremony of yet another pair, meanwhile constantly commanding his assistants. But when his customers have disappeared from sight another Pipolo appears, one who after thirty years in business is fed up with it and really cannot stand to see another bridal couple.

A steel worker is told by his girl friend, that she only wants to marry a rich man. A foreign spy hears this and offers him money if he gives him the formula of the new steel he's working with.

Documentary by Gerrard Verhage about five (ex-)communists and the influence their political convictions have had on their lives

Burdened with debt trauma, Mermans is murdered as the wife of Dingenen, a tired, unemployed man in his forties. All suspicions fall on him, but ultimately everything works out in this film adaptation of Aster Berkhof's novel of the same name.

Maya and Sem’s lives are intertwined. The two 17-year-old girls are like yin and yang: Sem lives for the future, Maya conversely lives in the here and now. One breezy summer’s evening, the two companions gaze up at the starry sky side by side. Sem clasps her ball, Maya her joint. There is some melodious music in the background. Everything is right, until the beat drops. Fate strikes promptly and ruthlessly.

Recording of the musical by Gerben Hellinga en Jacques Klöters, written in celebration of Louis Davids' 100th birthday.

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

Short romantic film made for the 48 Hours Project Rotterdam 2014

Elias has hardly left his childhood behind him than he is sent to boarding school with his older cousin. But before that he spends his holidays on the isolated estate belonging to his family, a little group fully out of touch with the world. —Hannelore Goossens

Chantal, a chubby girl of twelve, is having a hard time finding her way throughlife. She doesn't have a lot of friends, and at home she can only turn to herstepfather for support as she doesn't get along with her mother or stepbrother.Only in the local pool, where she is training intensively for an upcoming swimmingcompetition, does she truly feel at home. But when she needs a new pair ofgoggles, things don't go as smoothly as planned and she takes everything to gethold of them.

Bram Vermeulen searches for the origin of man and his civilization on earth. The Sumerian clay tablets, which are considered the first historiography, lead him via the story of creation and the theory of evolution to a revealing conclusion.

A short comedy about a nurse who loves her job a little bit too much. Based on the comic strip of the same name by Thé Tjong-Khing

This is a reflection of & on class consciousness

An American couple's dream travel to Amsterdam becomes a test of their love and a journey of universal bittersweet favors.

Two women are dissatisfied with their way of life and work. They also realize that their resistance to the frightening political and military developments in Europe has come to nothing. In seemingly different ways, they try to change their relationship with the outside world. They watch fragments of films by Resnais and Godard and even want to make their own film.

A romantic story set in the heart of a war-torn Kurdish town. When Sherin leaves to fight, her anguished lover Ferhat stays behind awaiting her return.

Second solo show by the Dutch comedian Hans Sibbel.

As death approaches, a lonely man sends his final words into space, hoping alien life will one day understand the quiet wonder of being human.

A flood of self-reflection, hilarity and self-mockery.

Semaphore is a cinematographic installation that emphasizes a subdued and meditative state by submerging the audience in a world of pulsating and shifting shapes. The work is created from two basic compositional premises; pulse and feedback. The backbone of the composition is a stream of visual and sonic pulses, leaving its intervals to be explored and brought to life by a feedback generating a network, consisting of envelopes, gates, compressors, and masks. The intertwining layers provide the experience of an elaborate audiovisual time-space-continuum. Running almost entirely without input from the outside world, the system becomes a magnifier of its own rudimentary functions and algorithms.

TV-adaptation of the performance by the Dutch theatre group 'het Werkteater'. A realistic fairy tale about old people in the no man's land between life and death, set in a retirement home.

"Doorgaan" is an intense and intimate documentary about survival and resilience, following the young talented boxer Farshid Bos on his way to the Dutch boxing championships. Heading for the top, he is coached by boxing legend Piet Rozendaal.

A 7 Hour Difference is what happens when East meets West at the crossroads of love, culture, and most importantly family. Back home from the states, and enjoying the festivities leading up to her sister's wedding, Dalia (Randa Karadsheh) gets a huge surprise when the love of her life JASON (Thom Bishops) shows up unannounced in Amman, and proposes. Problem is , she hasn't told her family... yet.

Four persons travel by rail to visit a city. On arrival they take a bicycle to continue their tour and join occasionally a passing protest manifestation. The camera is never far off their trail.

Putin’s Olympic Dream is about the rapid transformation of the city of Sochi. In just a couple of years it has to be refashioned from a nostalgic Soviet holiday resort, filled with gorgeous sanatoriums, into a modern Russian city. The Olympic Winter Games are held here in February 2014, and literally everything and everyone has to yield in order to turn this status project of President Putin into a success.

The film shows, in an almost motionless camera setting, a frumpy 1960s interior. The viewer sees a dresser with a vase of tulips atop it. Swelling music accompanies the camera as it slowly zooms in on Holland’s national flower. In the carefully constructed staging, it is like a visual sledgehammer when a single petal suddenly comes loose and falls. Then the camera modestly pulls back.

A hooker is stranded at a bustop, and a man crashes his car next to a phonebooth there. The hooker is attacked by punks, but fends them off; the man is attacked by the phone, and doesn't fare as well.