Discoveries from Netherlands World Cinema

Two Versions of Hell is both a documentary about Japan's World War Two biological weapons facility, Unit 731, and a demonstration of the power of historical revisionism.

Since the early 1990s, Roye Villevoye has regularly visited the Asmat (a Papuan people) in Irian Jaya, Papua New Guinea. After several films, Beginnings returns to his perspective of the first and naive interest of a Westerner. In two parts, shot on the spot and in Holland, we get to know an almost paradise-like state of innocence. It only becomes clear later how this was achieved.

A stand-up comedy set by the Dutch comedian Marc Scheepmaker, recorded live in Toomler in January 2007.

Concert film featuring the Belgian group Sioen.

After 29 years at the assembly line, Peter is ready for retirement. A film about the art of saying goodbye.

When the Dutch filmmaker Roy Seerden’s mother dies, there’s no holding him back. Sex, drugs, roaming through the night: his life transforms into a bundle of energy, grief and detachment. At the same time, he can’t help thinking of Antoine, the strange neighbor from his youth. Antoine the non-conformist, who was eventually thrown out of his home and ended up on the street. Without putting it into words, Seerden draws an obvious parallel between Antoine and himself.

Short film.

Documentary on the genesis of oil in the Earth's crust.

A fascinating look into the changing inner lives of young Orthodox Christians as they leave the safety of high school and fly out into the world.

Sunrise: Nature's alarm clock for the land, the sea, and the myriad of creatures who call our planet home. Accompany us on a tranquil journey into the landscape itself as we enjoy the sights and the ambient sounds associated with the first light of a new day. From daybreak on the turquoise Mediterranean coastline to the brilliant sunrise over Alaska's Katmai National Park, experience the world's most spectacular sunrises by the sea.

In Rembrandt, Haanstra shows that it is possible to make a fascinating film only with images from paintings. He had to travel though all over Europe to numerous museums and private owners in order to film the works of art. In the work of the great painter, Haanstra recognizes his particular interest in man as an individual human being, cutting straight through all the religious motives. And Haanstra also wants to see Rembrandt as an individual.

Many women are confronted with a young, slim and tight beauty ideal and worry a great deal if they can't live up to that image. Sunny Bergman asks in whose interest it is for her and other women to have these concerns, what's at stake, what's to gain and what's to lose. In this film, Bergman looks for the cause, the effects, and possible solutions for the Western preoccupation with our image.

In this documentary the viewer meets eighteen-year-old Chamoetal Zeidler, who starts her two years of mandatory military service in the Spokesperson’s Unit of the Israeli Army (IDF). With an Israeli father and a Dutch mother, growing up in Israel and in the Netherlands, going to the army wasn’t the obvious choice for Chamoetal. In the course of the film we learn how Chamoetal experiences her time in the army and how she transforms from a teenager into a grown-up soldier, who must justify all IDF actions.

Bohemian drama. A woman falls in love with a struggling artist, who later becomes famous and decides to leave Venice for a lucrative career in Paris.

In their second show, Waardenberg & de Jong attack each other with yoghurt, paint, water and wood glue. They end as sea lions, diving in a pool from a water slide.

Before the eyes of the Sudanese Ahmed (25), the war broke out in full force. He decides to flee on foot to the Netherlands alone, to be able to live there in freedom. This documentary shows part of his arduous journey: from the Italian Alps to Ter Apel.

When the mayor promises housing for everyone and the polls open in this animation, the hounded doves are quick to act. With an election result that would delight the Partij for the Animals.

Three children experiment with an Ouija board at a thrilling location but it doesn't go well...

Short musical documentary

Documentary about the life and work of Flemish poet Karel Jonckheere looked at from four perspectives/professions: farmer, fisherman, sheepherder and hunter.

Short film.

There's an ancient myth that the light in Holland is different from anywhere else, but it has never been put to the test. It's the legendary light we see in paintings.

Combining two recently discovered unique archival sources, this short film evokes the lost history of a Dutch women's pacifist movement that brought women together in collective action in the 1930s.

Does Shangri-La really exist? Mirka Duijn goes in search of the answer in this travelogue-cum-investigation. She travels to the mountains of Tibetan China and digs into the archives to unravel the history of this mythical place. At first sight, the answer is obvious: British author James Hilton invented Shangri-La for his 1933 novel Lost Horizon, in which four characters crash land in the Kunlun Mountains and later find a magnificent monastery—a paradise on earth.

A local Dutch judge gets entangled in the mysterious past of his Antilian wife.

Hilda and Cristina have been told that a settlement will begin near the cementery. Hilton, an illegal gravedigger, watches with concern. If they invade, he won’t have space to digging graves. The settlement and the cemetery are very close, and the dead seem to have achieved what they desire: a home.

Ann starts a relationship wit Badry who lives in Belgium illegally.

A married "change guru" decides to leave his wife for his younger mistress, but an inconvenient death in the family puts his breakup plans on hold.

A Young man is interested in the girl next door, but also discovers that he is not insensitive to a boy, with whom he has dress-up parties in the attic and plays in an old bunker in the dunes.

A dutch mini-series/documentary that celebrates fifteen years of broadcasting the legendare dutch musicshow ‘101Barz’. The documentary follows the production of a one-off live show in the Royal Theater Carré in Amsterdam with multiple Grammy winning jazz and pop orchestra ‘The Metropole Orkest’ in collaboration with some of the best artists from the dutch rap and hip-hop scene. This is interjected by interviews with some of the most notable and loyal guests of the show and ‘Rotjoch’ the creator and presenter of the show during all these years.

A photographer becomes his own subject after he meets a mysterious figure. He is seduced by this animal-like creature, but as his desire grows, so does his fear. Exhilarating music and provocative movements slowly guide us into a nightmare in which the character eventually loses control over his own body.

Mino is an average white Dutch boy. But when a kid mocks him with slanted eyes, and he gets called a fucking Chinese at the restaurant where he works, disbelief and doubt begin to creep in. His parents insist that he’s ‘just Dutch’, like them. After a heated confrontation, Mino undergoes a transformation, and in this graduation film, for the first time he sees what he really looks like. A comic thriller, based on the filmmaker’s own experiences, about racism and the alienating moment of realising your appearance doesn’t match the culture you’ve grown up in your whole life.

Laura searches for a way to cope with her mother's mysterious death 12 years ago. With the help of home videos and phone calls to relatives in Nigeria, she tries to find out who her mother was and what exactly happened, but the distance makes it difficult. Might the answers to Laura's questions be closer than she thought?

The newly released enigmatic amulet Dream Weaver 555 promises to unlock the gateway to realising dreams, offering hope beyond reach where wishes materialise within the depths of dreams. With this satirical commentary on Thai society, director Panida Petchara turns this magical trinket into a cinematic device to explore how capitalism fuels desire and inequality by banking on superstition. Even dreams are commercialised in this subversive work that throws the teleshopping-aesthetic in the uncanny valley.

When Noah (16) finds his own son Ziggy on the doorstep of his home, he is catapulted into adult life in one fell swoop. When it turns out he cannot combine his former life with being a father, he gets onto his moped after a flaming row with his mother. Carrying the baby in a sling, he intends to return the child to his ex Marije. His despair leads him all over the Netherlands and Belgium. Will he – in time – realise he is really and undeniably a father?

A stone's throw from the iconic Cheops pyramids, another famous man-made creation rises, towering over the Giza Plateau: The Grand Egyptian Museum. The construction of this ultra-modern building of unprecedented proportions, stretching over 117 acres, was recently finalized. With its 20 years of construction punctuated with pitfalls and dead ends, 5000 daily onsite workers and 1-billion-dollar budget, it is the biggest construction site the world has ever seen. In the 260,000 square feet dedicated to the permanent collection, the new museum houses 100,000 priceless archaeological artefacts including numerous ones that have never been shown to the public. Through a combination of illustrated archives and 3D sequences of the building's construction, as well as explanations by the experts involved, we will delve into the heart of this pharaonic project - the greatest Egyptian works ever undertaken since the pyramids. Welcome to the biggest museum in the world!

A walk through a garden.

Video art by Jaap Drupsteen

The work is a video-poem, an exploration and reflection on the sense of vision as a tool to understand signifiers - but also and more importantly, as means through which we can interpret something by feeling it on an intuitive level. stripped of their original context, and deprived of words or sounds, mixed-media imaginary is collaged in non-linear format of storytelling. By forming different constellations of images, meaning is left open.

With the same intensity with which the flashing blue light illuminates its surroundings, fatal experiences are burned into the memory of an ambulance paramedic. The traumatic dimension of carrying out a profession that is essential for society is brought closer by the documentary confession of a man who sometimes unfortunately cannot save the lives of others.