Discoveries from Netherlands World Cinema

A nun escapes the convent to discover the real world outside. Her parents however believe that she's kidnapped.

A woman ends up in a psychiatric ward after a burnout and discovers that 'normal' is far more fragile and universal than she ever imagined.

With music and stories, Claudia de Breij paints a portrait that blends domestic details with global news: being kind, wanting to be seen, overstimulation, abstinence, dictators, and restaurant tunes.

Through Fever Dreams of a Hermit the artist tries to understand the multiple sides of caregiving, where the giver and receiver of care are never fully in an equal power balance. The multimedia project critiques, grieves and transforms the prevalent capitalist mindset of carelessness. Using Tarot as a metaphor for the uncertainties of life and the many unintended layers of our actions, the artist encourages the viewer to question their caregiving practices, and to care more gently. Can we tip the scales of carelessness to one of conscious interdependent care?

The animated film Longing deals with a parent-child relationship torn apart by grief. After Chris’ mother vanishes without trace, he and his father Toon miss her intensely. While Chris weeps and seeks consolation from Toon, Toon is unable to show his vulnerability. As Toon literally swallows his tears and they start to fill up his body like a reservoir, he becomes alienated from his young son.

Hazeke -the daughter of innkeeper Tapmans- marries Paul - the sun of a rich industrialist called Conti. Hazeke learns that her husband used to hang out a lot with a certain Mary.

The Dutch musical comedians Theo Nijland, Maarten van Roozendaal, Jeroen van Merwijk and Kees Torn sing and play a selection of their songs to promote the Dutch theater song.

Short funny animation about a irritating spider and a man who is reading the newspaper. He catches the spider and flushes her through the toilet. But the big arms from the spider comes out of the toilet, catches the man and pulls him also through the toilet

The conservative Joop is shocked when he finds his son (Tom) completely beaten up. Tom takes this opportunity to confront his father with a secret about himself. Maybe Joop doesn't know his children as well as he thought he did.

Short impression of the work of fishermen on the Dogger bank.

Carnotstraat 17 is a feature documentary looking more closely into the effect on someone’s identity through migration.

Registration of the fifth theatre program by the Dutch musical comedy duo Veldhuis & Kemper. The show explores the differences between men and women.

A moving, sobering reconstruction of the time spent in hiding in the Netherlands by Jewish baby Anneke Kohnke (b. 1940), who now lives in the United States. After the war, her life was marred by feelings of guilt, a devastating silence and lack of memories. Using interviews, archive film of life in the Netherlands during the German occupation, old family photos and voice-over narration, filmmaker Deborah van Dam takes us on an exciting search, presenting one revelation after another about the first four years of Anneke's life.

Registration of the fifth stand-up show by the Dutch comedian Hans Sibbel. This show is about values, thinking and reasoning to the most extreme consequences.

Dutch journalist Liesbeth Rasker exposes how society still consciously and unconsciously prefers to see women in the role of mother.

A Golden Bear winning documentary showing Impressions of building in the Netherlands.

A single phone call between a beat-down woman in a car and her girlfriend, unravels the dynamics of physical and mental violence in a same sex relationship.

Who? What? Where? Why? Upon returning from a routine delivery, a driver finds his coworker lying on the street, lifeless. As he attempts to address what happened to his colleagues, the evening takes an unexpected turn for the worse.

Danny Ghosen investigates the heated asylum debate in the Netherlands. He speaks to people who are concerned or angry, asylum seekers who are uncertain about their future and that of their children, people who remain in the Netherlands illegally, and volunteers who support them through thick and thin. The documentary hopes to give a face to the different perspectives.

Nelson is a miniature pig—at least, that’s what the Verbeek family were told when they bought him as a cute little piglet. But seven years and 500 kilos later, Nelson has become a big problem. The neighbors and the housing association think it’s unacceptable to have such a large and smelly animal in a residential neighborhood. Son Brandon is being bullied at school because of his pet.

A modest man witnesses the deadly accident of a renowned writer and steals his manuscript. At home the man receives the sequel of the manuscript on the fax, written in the same handwriting. He decides to publish the book under his own name. He becomes very successful, until his fans start to ask for another book.

Super 8mm color stop motion animated film about the chaos and lifestyle of Amsterdammers, set to the music of Hilary Jeffery.

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.

After a series of disasters, nothing is left of human civillisation. All that remains are the people left behind who live in a post-apocalyptic no man's land. When Lil, a young lonely woman, finds a wounded stranger near her shelter, she has to decide if she'll help him or not. Does she remember what it's like to do something good for another human being?

Twelve-year-old Luuk Bos has always believed that his father is the Strongest Man in the World. His mother Dorien, who raised him on her own, used to tell him the most wonderful stories about it. During a visit to a local Strongest Man competition, he meets a participant, René Doornbos, who, like him, has red hair. Luuk thinks he has found his father.

Hans is addressing his first love, Arief, as if he could hear him despite the distance and time. This heart-breaking love letter guides his steps in search of Arief, while Agnès, Hans’ feminine double, reappears like a ghost. The Hans/Agnès duo roam the streets of Lisbon in a phantasmagorical and desperate quest, to remind us that it is impossible to escape one’s past.

A writer's attempt to redeem herself through a cyclone of reimagining a heartbreak.

During a holiday, Charlie invites his friends for a weekend getaway at his family’s beach house in Caruao, Venezuela. Already on the first night, an unexpected triangle causes tension within the group. This has an impact on the rest of the weekend. Sultry coming-of-age drama in which youthfulness, friendship, curiosity and freedom are extensively celebrated. Relationships are damaged, against the background of a paradisaical place where anything seems possible.

Short report about the production of tea in (possibly) Ceylon (Sri Lanka).

The film shows the fast and efficient production process at the Rijks Munt in Utrecht, with footage of melting, casting, punching, rolling, and minting coins.

The Dutch water polo men's team has not qualified for the Olympic Games since 2000. The team will get a new chance during the 2021 Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Rotterdam. This documentary follows Bilal, Eelco, and Robin during the preparations. The chance that they will succeed is small, they all know that. But imagine that it will work.

Joy and her daughter Skye live on a trailer site on the edge of town. Joy’s liberal upbringing style is tested when Skye takes mimicking her mother to extremes.

What happens when director Ruud Lenssen's father is told he suffers from dementia? While Jac clings to his idyllic meadow, mother Ria struggles with her role as a caregiver. In the meantime, the inevitable farewell is closing in.

Jacq Vogelaar and Frans van de Staak cooperated in a sort of struggle between language and film: their perspectives are different, even exclusive. For Vogelaar his primary preoccupation with language as a novelist is anger, and rebuilding its expression as an individual fixation of the embodied space, whereas for Van de Staak as a filmmaker language is embedded in the activity of making film, which goes beyond any linguistic fixation... "The actor's unintended gestures, manner of moving or change of bodily position, is as important as the text he speaks -all that has to be on the same level of significance, and by doing so it becomes meaningless, because only then it dissolves." No one scene [except the first] 'exists' in advance, fixed in a script, but each scene was created and realized in reaction to a previous scene, which was then screened after its recording. As a result of this 'domino-method' the scenario was written after the making of the film, which took one year.

A collage of autobiography, reflections on previous work and the photographer in action. Van der Elsken tells us that he’s working on a photo book about life, from the cradle to the grave, about how people are: physical, sensuous, naked. He takes the time to show us a selection from the thousands of slides he has made during his wide-ranging travels as a photo reporter.

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.

Set between the sublime tranquility of the Wadden Sea and the restless pace of Groningen city life, Schoem follows the story of Hades, a young skipper whose family is slowly falling apart. As the world changes faster than he can keep up, Hades is confronted with the emotional weight of change, loss, and unexpected connection. Inspired by Ingeborg Nienhuis's novella "Schoem or De vaarende Zoltkamper," this short film combines poetic realism with emotional depth. Directors Kashani and Komelizadeh draw on their own intercultural experiences, creating a work that is simultaneously simple and aesthetically daring.

In a ‘tonal’ coloured 16mm film performance (with six Hokushins), a sonorous poem of twilight, indistinctness and suggestiveness, Urlus tries to make visible the darkness of a depressed mind. The suffering of an adolescent, the filmmaker’s daughter. Colours and mood are inspired by the famous photograph ‘The Pond – Moonlight’ by Steichen (1904) and the Nocturne paintings by Whistler (1870’).

A girl who's living abroad, alone for the first time, misses her cat.

A young couple decides to travel to an old friend in the south of France. Once arrived, the couple is confronted with the current reality of a changing world. After a long, destructive period spent in nightlife, Terrance finds himself in an uncomfortable silence. He decides to travel in a camper to the south of France with his girlfriend Sanne to visit an old friend. As soon as they have arrived, the duo is confronted with the reality of a changing world.

Short funny animation about a heart transplant.

Documentary about a traveling super market in Tilburg.

Dance is by far the most important thing in 14-year-old Skip’s life. He’s got big ambitions, so whenever he gets the chance to take part in a dance competition with his all-boys group the Rhythm Rangers, he’s completely committed to the rehearsals at the local dance school.

In 'A Young Girl' Gilda de Bal plays Emma, a senior farmer who increasingly loses her grip on reality. Emma has lost her husband, and lives and works together with her son, Geert. She refuses to recognise the impending downfall of the farm. Will Geert succes in both saving his mother as the farm? A layered representation of the issues of small livestock farmers in 2018.

An experimental journey through a year in the life of the director, using his always playing playlist to cross the boundaries of fiction and documentary. Through scenes of both comedy and tragedy, realistic documentary footage and experimental sequences of the director's environment and daily life we get a sometimes estranging image of a young man and also an intriguing insight in his mindset and how this translates to the imagery on screen.

Succes is about businessman (Rene van ´t Hof), that's giving a -seamingly- important presentation. The presentation is a big success and the man goed out to celebrate. His way.