Discoveries from Netherlands World Cinema

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.

A raw and intimate portrait of producer and rapper Leendert ‘Leo’ Roelandschap, a.k.a. Bizzey. As part of Yellow Claw, he conquered not only the Netherlands, but also the rest of the world at lightning speed. We follow Bizzey during his quest for success.

Four Rotterdam boys find solace and connection through a substitute form of spoken language, music, bridging the gap of a missing fifth. Without one, there is no other; without sorrow, no happiness. Together, we strive to endure the great unbearable existence.

Raymond is a painter who is very successful in his career. One day, he walks into a saloon and his eyes fall on the beautiful Jennie. She poses for one of his paintings and later runs off with all his money. When they meet again, they fall head over heels in love and get married. She is forced by Apaches to steal from him again, but Jennie refuses. In revenge, they lock her up and go after Raymond themselves. They attack him and lock him up as a living mummy in a sarcophagus. He is eventually rescued and reunited with Jennie, while the Apaches themselves are locked up.

A mysterious foreign woman who is staying temporarily in a house there. Who she is and what her secret is are both slowly revealed in the reconstruction of a story about passion, revenge and war. Paul Ruven's homage to the films of Marguerite Duras and Chantal Akerman.

Melodrama about a simple woman from Amsterdam who is forced to choose between the depraved father of her children and the love of a kind-hearted sailor.

In 2014, the Tempters launched an attack on the monetary system and banks. The result? Sold-out venues, shocked visitors, and an investigation by the Scientific Council for Government Policy. Has anything changed since then? Absolutely. It's only gotten worse!

A jazzy film in which the spectator is forced to look with the ears and listen with the eyes. An abstract film drawn directly on the computer.

A VICE Essential about the music and life of young Dutch people of Moroccan origin with the leading parts of the mocrorap.

Ampersand lives in a world where you have to pay to speak. Rich people have a lot to say while the poor can't say anything. Ampersand is in love with Cedille but can't tell her because het can't buy the words.

The three very different men in this film have become friends out of their common dissatisfaction with their lives. Beard is now more or less a street person since his wife left him. Before that, he was a social worker. "Foureyes" is a nebbish science teacher, who can't get anyone to take him seriously -- certainly not his students. He seeks solace in the quiet of the stars, which he views in his telescope at night. Finally, Gerdo is a fellow who is a master of many trades, successful at almost everything he does, except in his own eyes. Each new challenge proves unsatisfying when met. The only thing he wants is the one thing he can't bring about: the return of his old girlfriend, who left him for some boring civil servant. He sees her everywhere, and images of her haunt him constantly. (allmovie.com)

Set on the eve of World War I, this poetic coming-of-age drama follows Elias, a sensitive twelve-year-old dreamer living on an isolated country estate. Raised by an eccentric, overprotective family detached from reality, Elias finds refuge in nature and his vivid imagination to escape his internal struggles. His fragile childhood bubble is shattered when he learns he will soon be sent away to a strict boarding school. During his final summer at home, Elias experiences a bittersweet emotional awakening shaped by three relatives: his older cousin and close companion Aloysius, his young cousin Hermine, who harbors a subtle infatuation for him, and his beautiful, melancholic Aunt Henriette, who serves as a dramatic muse. Based on Maurice Gilliams’ modernist classic, the film is a nostalgic, melancholic portrait of a boy forced to leave his idyllic fantasies behind and face the adult world.

Metalosis Maligna is a documentary about a disease that affects patients with medical implants. Metalosis Maligna occurs when a metal implant interacts badly with human body tissue, causing the metal to grow tendrils, which eventually puncture the skin from within and destroy it. The movie shows the development of the disease from its early stages through to the gory advanced stages, by which point entire sections of flesh have fallen away and all that is left is a skeleton of scrap metal.

Feature film based on Leon de Winter's book of the same name, in which protagonist Herman Dürer hitchhike south after a stay in a juvenile detention center and ends up stranded in Munich.

What happens if you give magic mushrooms (psilocibine) to experienced Zen practitioners who have never used drugs? What does that teach us about the mystical experience of oneness with nature? Based on these questions, psychiatrist Franz Vollenweider and Zen master Vanja Palmers set up a legal science experiment in a monastery at the top of Mount Rigi in Switzerland. Exactly 50 years after the magic mushrooms were officially banned, a new story begins in what is now called the “psychedelic renaissance”. While in 2021 most studies with psychedelics mainly focus on their promising medical applications, Frans and Vanja are already going a step further. Can the combination of meditation and psilocibin help humanity get out of the mess we have created on ourselves and the planet with our neo-liberal society?

A nurse. A strange kind of hospital. If the treatment is succesful it should seem as if nothing even happened at all. As if this entire area remains untouched by man.

A man wants to invite an angel into his home and therefore steals some items from a church to make his task easier.

Belgian movie-icon Marc Didden's artistic documentary about the houses he lived in throughout his life.

An endless void stretches out behind the windows of a large room. Only windows, no doors. It’s empty except for five people sitting at a table that seats six. Their withered bodies adorned with lush fabrics and jewelry, they spend eternity playing with their food. A charged silence fills the air. Any violation of the strict social rules is immediately suppressed by the others. When the fragile equilibrium in the group is finally broken by the boy’s constant pestering, things start spiraling out of control. His mother tries her best to protect both him and herself from the consequences but playing this double role comes at a high price.

“Waterlanders” is Simone van Dusseldorp’s 1994 graduation film from the Netherlands Film and Television Academy. It depicts two sisters coping with their parents’ death and constructing their own reality in an attempt to regain a sense of agency. While the sisters share an unbreakable bond, the older sister’s growing curiosity about the outside world strains their relationship as the younger sister resists these newfound changes.

Filmmaker Mady Saks takes a small – all female, obviously – crew to the very first Vrouwenhuis (Women’s House), which opened in 1973 in a squatted building on Amsterdam’s Nieuwe Herengracht canal. Here, Saks and her crew regularly met with other women from the media. In discussions among the women or between them and the filmmaker, it becomes clear what it means to them to develop without male intervention (men were not allowed in the Women’s House), and to be able to learn from one another. Saks intersperses this with street interviews, through which she sounds out the mood of society in relation to topics such as marriage and the main areas of struggle for the women’s movement. Towards the end of the film, we hear Alix Dobkin’s song Fantasy Girl on the soundtrack as a light-hearted commentary on the developments Saks is presenting. (from: https://player.eyefilm.nl/en/films/de-vrouw-en-haar-vrouwenhuis)

A young woman awakens in a stranger’s bed, her mind blank, unable to piece together how she arrived or who this man is.

Choices follows a young man who can be seen experiencing the same day twice, but the choices he makes throughout the day have an impact on his life.

A report about excursions to various craters in the Dutch East Indies, including Papandayan, Kawah Kamojang, and Kawah Poetih. The film also includes aerial shots of the “twin craters” Kawah Oepas and Kawah Ratu.

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

Spare Parts is a short film based on a true story that tells the story of Renilde a young and desired pupil who's conflicted between her self-respect and the love for her father.

In this 25 minute documentary director Sebastian Mulder follows the tracks of the wolf Naya, by the huge amount of data that is collected: camera-recordings, gps-coordinates, samples, news items and so on.

A demented woman is suspended between the bitter reality and her dreams.

A film about the loneliness of an old man.

When producer Kees Rijninks, the husband of filmmaker Carmen Cobos, is diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, their world is falling apart. Yet after months of sadness, anger and denial, it appears that they have sufficient resilience to find a new balance in their lives. In TOGETHER they follow for a year a group of incurably ill patients, their partners and their neurologist to find an answer to the question how people deal with the knowledge that they are incurably ill. Do they find the resilience to give their lives a positive meaning in hopeless circumstances?

The paradox of the successful, worldly conductor, who makes the centuries-old world of classical music accessible, and the intimate composer feels rather like standing on a delicately balanced pile of rocks. And staying there until the rehearsals are concluded and the concert is about to begin. The conductor goes on stage and moves in front of the orchestra. He lifts his hands in the air - ready to embody music. In his documentary 'Brossé', Jacques Servaes gives us a behind-the-scenes look at the day-to-day life of conductor and composer, Dirk Brossé.

You’ll be part of the adventures of Eddy Wally in America, where he’ll experience his journey to his roots as a market vendor!

In a world where almost everyone died due to overpopulation and shortage of food, a father and his son are trying to survive.

Follow the vivacious six-year-old Branche, who has recently arrived in the Netherlands from Macedonia with his parents. Branche goes to school for the first time, but he doesn’t speak the language and doesn’t know anybody. Finding a friend isn’t all that easy.

A film about the making of a film. A director rehearses with actors and actresses some scenes from his pantomime about the death of Pierrot. The players then put on their costumes and make-up. In automobiles, all the members of the film crew are driven to a country estate where the film within the film is to be made and where the cameraman is seen turning the handle of his camera.

Still continuously on his guard, but with dwindling strength, a man for the last time tries to keep his valuable possessions together. When he can no longer keep all his attackers at bay, his end is near. A life without lust. But the loss also relieves him of a heavy burden.

Using information from the investigation following the dropping of the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, this documentary outlines the immediate 24 hours following the massive explosion. The first atomic bomb contained 140 lbs of enriched uranium and reduced the downtown to a wasteland with 70,000 people killed immediately. Another 40,000 died three days later when a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. The Army spent 10 weeks studying the impact of the explosion focusing on thermal flash. The immediate impact was that some were vaporized leaving only atomic shadows. Triangulating these led them to conclude that the bomb exploded only a few hundred yards from its intended target. There was heavy damage for 3 miles in every direction. A great many were burned but there was very little information about radiation poisoning at the time. Today, scientists are still studying but the study continues today with the study of 120,000 Hiroshima survivors.

In the Netherlands, there are more bicycles than people, and in the city of Utrecht, they are everywhere. But for filmmaker Ella Aafjes, they are also constantly disappearing. Despite the evolution of the bicycle over 200 years, Ella remains stuck in a primitive cycle of loss, unable to keep a bike for more than a few months. The film explores "The Circuit"; an urban ecosystem where stolen bikes are sold and resold in a never-ending loop, turning victims into unwitting participants. Through a nostalgic and humorous look back at her "bike history," Ella documents her escalating war with Utrecht’s bike thieves.

A performance blending 16mm film, sound loops, music and spoken word. In collaboration with Mariëtte Groot, Janeiro creates a rich soundscape that moves fluidly from karaoke recordings and breathing exercises to synths and acoustic instruments. The visuals depict everyday social life, interwoven with sudden, inexplicable mysteries, drawing on gothic themes, with transformation and death as central elements. These are portrayed in a raw, visceral way, heightening the piece’s unsettling yet playful atmosphere.

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

Three young artists delve into their family past to break the generational silence about the Dutch East Indies history.

A 23 year old boy learns how to see again after he has been blind for nearly 20 years. He does however continue to see images of his mother flashing by.

Mowgli and Fidel are about to make a trip around the world. A big event, which sets Fidel to consider what he really wants. The film shows the effects the approaching departure has on both men and their relationship: Mowgli can't wait to leave and Fidel tries everything to postpone the journey. It gradually becomes apparent that the worries about the cat that stays behind are only part of the reason for Fidel's growing reluctance.

A typical Dutch ditch: Rarely worthy of a second glance. But those who look closer discover a rich ecosystem, teeming with life and intricate connections. Beneath the surface of a Dutch waterway lies a hidden world. In this short nature film, we follow the lives of fish, insects, and birds across the changing seasons, from winter’s stillness to summer’s abundance. SLOOT is a tribute to biodiversity in a man-made landscape.

More than thirty years ago, Louis van Gasteren made the documentary BEGRIJPT U NU WAAROM IK HUIL? about a therapeutic LSD session that professor Jan Bastiaans did with a traumatised ex-prisoner of German concentration camps. The patient died in late 2000 at the age of 81. He left a wife and three children. Poignant conversations with the widow and youngest son, and excerpts from letters from the other two children reveal that a concentration camp syndrome can also inflict deep wounds in those who have not personally experienced it.

Caro Emerald and the Grandmono Orchestra turned the Heineken Music Hall into their own personal ballroom for three fantastic nights in December, 2010. It's the perfect ambiance to enjoy all of the hits from her unprecedented cinematic debut album "Deleted Scenes From The Cutting Room Floor" live. With an orchestra dressed to kill, as usual, a large string- and hornsection, a handsome vaudevillian MC and a venue packed from pilar to post, you'll hear the amazing Ms. Emerald deliver all the hits and favourites including "Back It Up", "A Night Like This", "That Man" and an amazing rendition of "Stuck". It also features the previously unreleased "Close To You" and "Two Hearts", both available here for the first time anywhere.