Discoveries from Netherlands World Cinema

The American president Jimmy Carter and the Chinese statesman Teng-Hsiao Ping sing together Alle Menschen werden Brüder. In the background is a poster by Mao Zedong, on which the Great Helmsman advertises Coca-Cola, Levi’s and Ford.

Akiko is standing in an endless, black and empty space. As if she wakes up and finding herself in a different sense of being, she reconstructs herself and her surroundings. Different elements from her surroundings come into view; the road, the grass and the streetlights. Akiko watches and experiences everything in a very intense way, as if she has never seen the world before. She has no idea of existence. When all the elements are there, the world is not as pure as Akiko has always felt.

Agnes’ life revolves around playing badminton with her queer friends and working at a restaurant she set up inside her house with her best friend Rini. One day her younger brother Indra arrives, looking for his brother Hans. Agnes faces a dilemma, keep the lie or tell the truth about who she is. The truth could give her a chance to reconcile with her brother but it seems more difficult to reach than she thought.

A German documentary about the activities of Kaiser Wilhelm II during his exile in the Netherlands.

When teenager Andi discovers a card of a Dutch porn star in the bedroom he shares with his brother, his obsession to get a phone and access the X-rated content means he doesn't notice that his brother has chosen this day to say goodbye to him.

We follow neurosurgeons Clemens Dirven and Arnoud Vincent of the Erasmus MC in Rotterdam in this documentary during the treatment of three patients with a brain tumor.

Tom's digital assistant knows that he's going to get dumped before he does.

The story of Beauty and the Beast performed by Van Hoorne Entertainment.

A medieval writer attracts the attention of Death itself while he writes his stories. Soon Death enters a tale he is creating and attempts to kill his main protagonist.

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 succesful musical star who wants to retire gets chased by musical hallucinations

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.

Mini & Maxi go back to base Extra's: Goed Geoogst

Luuk is a truck driver who seems to be a goodhearted father for his eight-year-old daughter Isabel. After Luuk divorced from his wife Karen, Isabel lives with her mother. Whenever Luuk has the chance he takes Isabel to the sea or for a ride in his truck, which only carries sand. On one of those occasions Luuk discovers the horrific reason why Isabel is so quiet that day. From that moment on Luuk has to cope with a new and unexpected situation. Luuk kidnaps his daughter in an attempt to protect her, but he slowly loses control.

A photographer in late 19th century England arrives at the estate of her latest client where she discovers a deeply unsettling secret.

Where do homeless people in Amsterdam find their night’s rest? This short documentary makes poignantly clear what it means to sleep outside as a social outcast. They populate car parks, mini-trailers and the spaces under fly-overs; the homeless people of Amsterdam, whose sleeping habits are spotlighted in this distressing documentary. Filmmaker Jelmer Wristers called on various outdoor sleepers, the camera in their faces, registering how they spend the night in their hiding places. From sleeping on a bench in open air to a 'luxury tent' where a buzzing fly interferes with sleep. And from the solitary loner hiding under boxes and crates to the group sleepers who set out together.

Due to a new bridge, the skipper of a ferryboat is suddenly without passengers. A coot looking for stuff for its nest provides a solution.

Seven persons, who didn't go to work, stayed together all day long while looking for a gift to surprise their boss. (Wim Schlebaum)

The bomb piano When world-famous pianist Nathalia Tkofschip is in town for a concert, two villains decide to kidnap her and plant a bomb in her piano. They demand a hefty ransom. Migrain thinks he can save the day, but then he gets caught too. Time for Mega Mindy to step in.

Mac 'n Cheese try to realize their dream vacation by working in a local supermarket. Things go awry when new opportunities arise to make a buck. This short was shown theatrically before World War Z in the Netherlands.

Reconstruction of the political drama around Ayaan Hirsi Ali that heralded the fall of the Dutch cabinet. A musical documentary on a subject close to all Dutch people: truth and lies in politics. The film exposes the motives surrounding the drama in which feminist activist and politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali was accused of lying about her identity. In this political story we are also told the personal tale of the young girl Sadaf, who sought asylum years ago. THE LIE demonstrates the human side of Dutch politics, while revealing how Holland deals with the thorny immigration issue.

One night in the trenches during the Spanish Civil War, Joan Brossa heard a voice call his name. He didn't see anyone and walked towards where he thought the sound came from. A moment later, a shell hit the ground where he had just been standing. From that moment on, Brossa wanted to be a poet.

The history of Pieter Spa.

The film Sugnu Sicilianu unfolds like a series of flashbacks through time, connecting memory and dreams. This film is a journey through inheritance, where histories are both confronted and reshaped. Sugnu Sicilianu questions heritage, family, and identity through a return to the places that once tied me and my family to our roots.

Through the prism of cinema, the work traces the journeys of undocumented migrants across vast lands, exploring distance as a condition of diasporic lives just as it is a position intrinsic to the act of filming. The artist invited a crew from the cinema industry of his native Lahore—also known as Lollywood—to script and direct a series of sequences, the narrative of which would be loosely based on videos found online. Recorded by migrants as they travel from South Asia to Europe, such videos give insight into the harshness of their peregrinations—which often last for years and sometimes do not reach the intended destination—as well as offering practical pieces of advice to those who have yet to depart.

A documentary about the relation between music and war.

Around 1970, director Marije Meerman attended the anti-authoritarian daycare center Prins Constantijn in Amsterdam, where children were raised by a collective of parents to become 'socially critical, creative, emancipated, pleasurable, inclusive people'. Twenty-five years later, Meerman looks for her daycare-mates, to see what became of them and what happened to the ideals they were raised with.

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

Debuting Iraq-born, Netherlands-based writer/director Ibrahim Selman starts out on docu ground, with a voiceover explaining his objectives and the film’s stand-in location, and recalling Kurdistan before the advent of war. He then shifts into narrative mode, with glimpses of life in a mountain village caught in the conflict between Iraqi military authorities and peshmergas (guerrilla freedom fighters).

Babs, mother of 35, falls in love with the nightclub owner Juan Carlos. However their luck runs out when Juan becomes a suspect in a murder case. As if that where not enough, Babs gets kidnapped.

Van der Keuken juxtaposes images of Dutch children learning to read against those of the coup d'état in Chile.

A website with a question. You only have to choose.

The film documents a personal memory. In 1988 I met a quietly eccentric man, who lived in the occupied Conradstreet in Amsterdam. More than 100 squatters lived there, mostly artists. Job was in my eyes the most authentic of them all. After the Conradstreet was dramatically cleared by the police the squatters left. Only Job stayed behind as if nothing had happened. After the buildings were pulled down he survived under the most bizarre conditions, apparently oblivious to time and space, but Job seemed to see something in stones and wood splinters that no-one else could see. One day he left and was never seen again.

Turkish-Dutch girl Yildiz searches for hope in faith, for herself and her manic destructive mother. In her search, she flees into her fantasy, the only safe place.

Two girls meet each other at a party and bring home a friend of theirs who is a bit too drunk. They wander around the streets of Utrecht and end up bringing each other home back and forth, because they don’t want the night to end.

During the endless waiting in the Amsterdam AZC, gay Iranian Milad (30) tries to make the best of it together with his friends Arman (34) and Radfan (27). To get the residents in the AZC more in touch with each other, they decide to organize a poetry night. At the same time, gay Jurre (24) starts an internship at COA. He would like to do something good for Milad out of a sense of guilt about his privileges. When he hears about the poetry evening Milad and his friends want to organize, he decides to get involved, but soon finds out that his good intentions backfire.

The Mother of the Forest ~ Curupira ~ is the story of a powerful Amazonian goddess told through the voices of the Borarí people from the heart of the forest in Pará, Brazil. She is the all powerful guardian of all living beings in the forest. And while she is generous and benevolent in her gift… Beware! If you disrespect her home, her punishments are merciless. Her warnings are more relevant than ever in a contemporary reality where the forces of agri-business, logging and mining are decimating the forest faster than we can protect it. Her story reminds us that it is time to listen, respect and rekindle a more balanced relation to nature if we wish to protect our common home.

The 14-year-old David is a talented breakdancer; his mother Mery supports him unconditionally in his ambition to reach the top. As a teenager, she fled her native Armenia, but the situation in her country still plays a major role in the family life. David wants nothing more than make up for what his mother lost. But he is also getting to an age where he starts to have doubts. Dancing and twisting, he looks for a way to make contact with his emotions.

Backlight is staying in the Basque village of Mondragón, where the majority of the population works in cooperatives. All employees are also co-owners and together they decide on the company policy. Even in today’s harsh economic climate, this approach is successful. Mondragón manufactures high-grade technological products and is now the seventh largest company in Spain, a multinational with branches all over the world. Boards, authorities and economists are keen to establish a model that functions properly and is above all internationally competitive. Mondragón is always used as an example and is flooded with visitors from all over the world. Backlight investigates the cooperative model in times of crisis. How firmly is this model anchored in society? Are notions like solidarity, participation and self-support generally accepted?