Netherlands
Marking the 20th anniversary of September 11, this two-hour documentary presents a unique and moving account of the day that changed the modern world. Featuring rare footage and audio, “9/11: I Was There” unveils an intimate portrayal of the events of September 11 captured by ordinary people who chose to pick up their video cameras that day; some courageous enough to get a closer look. Told in the moment without interview, commentary or narration, this riveting documentary weaves together the personal video diaries of a dozen people whose emotions are remarkable documentation of that dark day. A truly extraordinary portrayal, “9/11: I Was There” puts viewers in the shoes of New Yorkers and visitors alike to unfold the tragedy, the fear of what was next and the horrific aftermath to follow resulting in a raw and unfiltered telling of 9/11 from confusion to comprehension, terror and relief.
A married woman with a mute daughter has a forbidden relationship with the single father of a teenage boy.
Going to see Nutcracker with the whole family has been a tradition in other countries for many years. Now it is a tradition in the Netherlands as well. It became apparent that the Netherlands had also adopted this tradition in 1996, when the Dutch National Ballet presented its own version of the famous fairytale ballet. It is a magical production that has won the hearts of more than 250,000 people to date. Choreographers Toer van Schayk and Wayne Eagling created a Nutcracker for the children and adults of today. It is more dynamic and exciting, and less sweet than usual. They also chose to give a Dutch twist to their interpretation of the story, with skaters on the canals and a living room that transforms into a snowy forest. Unlike the original story, the production by Eagling and Van Schayk (who also designed the delightful sets and costumes) does not take place on Christmas Eve in a German town, but during St. Nicholas celebrations in Amsterdam, around 1810.
Erbarme dich – Matthäus Passion Stories is a labyrinthine narrative in which notables such as Peter Sellars, Emio Greco, Simon Halsey and painter Rinke Nijburg explain their special relationship with Bach’s St Matthew Passion to Ramón Gieling (Johan Cruijff: en un momento dado). They speak against the backdrop of a church which has fallen into disrepair, while a choir of homeless people and Pieter Jan Leusink’s Bach Choir & Orchestra rehearse the Passion. Leusink isn’t just the conductor, he is one of the main characters himself, with a painful past in which this musical piece has played a dominant role. Stories from the others alternate seamlessly with this. We learn how the St Matthew Passion played a decisive role in the relations between men and women, fathers and sons, fathers and daughters, mothers and their unborn children, and finally that in spite of our differences we all find a common denominator in the secret of Bach’s music.
Australian stuntman Grant Page goes to Los Angeles to work on a television series. He uses his spare time to lend his expertise to rock band Sorcery. Page helps the band develop pyrotechnic magic tricks for their shows, and also recounts to his own exploits as a stuntman and daredevil as well as various stunts by other greats.
Axel is Dutch Surinamese, but after 20 years of living in the Netherlands he has become 100% Dutch. He has married a Dutch girl, Victoria, and has never been back. When his free-spirited mother Gladys summons the family to her guesthouse in Surinam for Christmas and an important announcement, Axel, his wife and her sister Mirna reluctantly make the journey. They have barely arrived when the situation gets completely out of hand, with his brother Virgil winding him up and his daughter Wonnie, who is doing an internship in Paramaribo, admitting that she is pregnant…
The Hague, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia: Two ambitious lawyers face each other in the trial of Milorad Krstić, who’s accused of committing war crimes as a commander in the Bosnian war. The defender, Mikhail Finn, has managed to refute all the accusations against his client. Convinced of Krstic´s guilt, Catherine Lagrange, the prosecutor, summons a young man with incriminating evidence against Krstić. He claims to have been abandoned by his parents as a child and to have been one of Krstić’s soldiers. Defender Finn starts to investigate in order to verify the witness’ testimony – and soon encounters the young man’s family. Inspired by a true story.
After a long day at work, fiftyeight-year-old Khadija falls asleep on the last subway train. When she wakes up at the end of the line, she has no choice but to make her way home on foot. On her nocturnal journey she finds herself compelled to ask for and give help to the other inhabitants of the night.
Anyone who grows up in Sandton spends a lot of time hanging out at pools and drug-filled parties – for this part of Johannesburg is the richest spot in the whole of Africa. Necktie Youth portrays this first post-apartheid gilded youth in striking black-and-white. Soft colours are reserved for their childhood memories of the early years of the rainbow nation. White 19-year-old Emily did not understand the codes of their set and could not take the pace of the ever-changing, fleeting liaisons, says the super cool, black and privileged September when he tries to explain to a TV reporter why Emily hung herself in her parents’ garden. She even positioned her camera in such a way that her suicide could be streamed live.
Marine biologist Skylar Shane hires an expat charter boat captain, Jack Bowman, to help her find prehistoric life form samples in the north Sumatran Sea. During the expedition, they run into some of Jack’s ‘friends’, a gang of smugglers headquartered on a fishing platform in the middle of the sea. Tamal, an orphan sold into servitude on the fishing platform by his uncle, a ‘Dukun’ (sorcerer and master of black magic) shaman, begs Skylar to take him away. She empathizes with the boy, who reminds her of her lost daughter, Rebecca, and is determined to help him, not knowing what lurks beneath the dark inky water, waiting to surface. Ever since Tamal arrived, mysterious things begin to happen, until one by one the smugglers will be killed by the terrifying creature from the deep. In the middle of an eerie, violent storm, the animus inside Tamal grows stronger, calling for the ancient creature of his nightmares…
Just when Timo is trying to win back his ex-girlfriend by convincing her with his new and improved life, he and his friends are caught up in a drugs conflict. To stay alive, four ordinary guys need to sell 22 kilos of drugs within a week.
Four friends who are nearly turning 30 need to work together in order to fulfill their dreams.
The 1960s, Netherlands. Thomas doesn’t realise it yet, but he has special powers. The nine-year-old sees things others cannot. He lives in a strict, religious family where his father, quick to cite the word of God, often resorts to violence. As a sense of injustice grows within him and a longing for freedom takes hold, Thomas begins writing his Book on Everything. In it, he wishes for his father’s punishment and encounters a host of unusual characters: Jesus Christ, a levitating lady with a piano-loving cat, tropical fish swimming in city canals, a young peg-legged witch living next door, and many others.
Four old college friends in their forties come together in a time of trouble and despair. Old joy relives, but the harsh reality of their problems can’t satisfy them and eventually endangers their friendships.
An eccentric multimillionaire signs an agreement to have his life ended. While selecting his coffin he meets a young woman who has signed up for the same arrangement. Trouble ensues when the couple falls in love and wishes to get out of the contract.
In 2013, former Chadian dictator Hissein Habré’s arrest in Senegal marked the end of a long combat for the survivors of his regime. Accompanied by the Chairman of the Association of the Victims of the Hissein Habré Regime, Mahamat Saleh Haroun goes to meet those who survived this tragedy and who still bear the scars of the horror in their flesh and in their souls. Through their courage and determination, the victims accomplish an unprecedented feat in the history of Africa: that of bringing a Head of State to trial.
The people of Djenne (Mali, Africa) end the dry season with a special tradition. They plaster their mosque. This fairy-like building is the largest adobe construction in the world. Due to high temperatures and the (scarce) rainfal…
Recounted mostly through animation to protect his identity, Amin looks back over his past as a child refugee from Afghanistan as he grapples with a secret he’s kept hidden for 20 years.
Do we need animals to fill the void that should really be filled by people? To what extent do we project our own deprivation and longing on these sweet pets? All the protagonists in this documentary are indirectly afraid of being rejected and find safety and unconditional love in their animal(s). We observe these relationships and follow them in their steps to overcome their anxieties and insecurities and step into the world of humans more.
In the winter of 1891 a stranger arrives in a small coastal town on the Isle of Man. His presence soon disturbs the lives of the local inhabitants, especially the beautiful daughter of the parson.
15-year-old Jesse is the only one who witnessed the stabbing of his friend Jonas. Now he has to face his family and friends from the BMX riders crew and explain the unexplainable – how he feels about it.
David, now an old man, is still king of Israel. Among his sons, the ambitious Adonijah and the clever Solomon, fierce rivals, since both are prospective heirs to the throne and only one can be.
When Pharaoh Rameses II begins to tighten the noose on his Jewish slaves, Israelite Moses, called upon by God, leads his people to freedom.
A man uses the principles of double-entry bookkeeping to settle his accounts with society.
Through an intimate and artistic lens, yet investigative and political, Milk brings a universal focus on the politics, commercialization and controversies surrounding birth and infant feeding over the canvas of stunningly beautiful visuals and poignant voices from around the globe.
Film professor Michael falls in love with one of his students and is confronted with his pupil’s father, with whom he had an affair over 15 years ago. This unexpected meeting abruptly overturns the lives of all the characters. When the tutor decides to undertake a planned trip to London, not with the son but with the father, he is once again forced to choose; this time between his wife and his friend.
Dating in 2024, an impossible task… The optimistic Roos has the answer for dating in this time; never endlessly swiping on apps that lead to disappointing dates, but a date with your ideal counterpart carefully matched by a human matchmaker! Roos starts her company ‘Blind Date’ with good spirits and matches 4 singles after an extensive questionnaire. Clumsy dog groomer Jenny has given up hope after numerous dramatic dates. Bob analyzes his dates just like the figures in his financial job. Aldo can’t score points with his cheesy pickup lines and Eefje is overprotected by her worried father. Roos organizes the perfect date night for these 4 undatables with the help of her skeptical office colleague Geurt. Does the “perfect date” guarantee a match made in heaven, or do opposites attract after all?
In 1960, United Nations: the Global South ignites a political earthquake, musicians Abbey Lincoln and Max Roach crash the Security Council, Nikita Khrushchev bangs his shoe denouncing America’s color bar, while the U.S. dispatches jazz ambassador Louis Armstrong to the Congo to deflect attention from its first African post-colonial coup.
As the 1914 summer sun heats up mainland Europe, World War One crashes down across the fractured peninsula. Living in Paris, Dutchman Arthur Knaap yearns to serve, protect and defend his beloved nation and joins the Foreign Legion.
Three young guys with disabilities want to go on a party holiday in Salou, just as their friends do. Only their parents block this idea. But then a caretaker, found on the internet, makes the dream possible. Adios Amigos is a remake of the Belgium movie Hasta La Vista.
A lonely boy, who lives in Amsterdam with his refugee mother from Kosovo, keeps getting into trouble while yearning for her acceptance. But the traumas caused by the war, which his mother hides away from him, turn his world upside down.
In Mumbai, Nurse Prabha’s routine is troubled when she receives an unexpected gift from her estranged husband. Her younger roommate, Anu, tries in vain to find a spot in the city to be intimate with her boyfriend. A trip to a beach town allows them to find a space for their desires to manifest.
Patrick is the handyman on his father’s naturist campsite. The remaining time he dedicates to his hobby, designing and creating wooden furniture. When Patrick loses his campsite hammer, his quest to retrieve it takes him to the farthest corners of the camping grounds.
A fighter pilot travels back in time to save the future world from environmental disaster, but a side-effect turns her young again and no-one takes her seriously.
A mix of home-video and documentary styles about a group of young people who have decided to get to know their “inner-idiots” and thus not only facing and breaking their outer appearance but also their inner.
An allegory of the Golem, a Jewish mythical creature personifying displacement and exile, this film tells the story of a woman (similar to the biblical Ruth) and her sisters, who are forced into exile after the death of their husbands. It is set in 1990s Paris, where the director was living in self-imposed exile following the ban on his 1982 documentary in Israel. The recurring theme of the film is migrations and unrooting, like the legendary Golem.
A stubborn stage actor navigates single fatherhood, a strenuous theatre project, an adulterous love affair, and the confounding dreams awakened by a puzzling street encounter with a mysterious stranger.
A high-powered CEO puts her career and family on the line when she begins a torrid affair with her much younger intern.
A hilarious introduction, using as examples some of the best films ever made, to some of Slovenian philosopher and psychoanalyst Slavoj Žižek’s most exciting ideas on personal subjectivity, fantasy and reality, desire and sexuality.
A biographical item reportage about Sommelier Barbara Verbeek and her own company.
