Netherlands
Heddy Honigmann returns to her birthplace of Lima, Peru to reacquaint herself with a place and people dear to her heart. It is about a forgotten city, a forgotten history and a forgotten people. With irony as their loved weapon for survival, they have to forget as well, in order not to give way to cynicism, hatred and grief. It is about remembering the old days when life – despite class differences, corruption and violence – was still good: waiters, bartenders and shopkeepers who are fighting a losing battle and have lost everything. It is also about the children who manage to survive by mastering the art of street life and who reveal the country in it’s true colours. Just like the dogs they share the streets with, they have no good memories to forget.
During World War II in the freezing Netherlands winter of 1944/1945 the western Netherlands are in the grip of a famine. Many people move east to provide for their families. Fourteen year old Michiel can’t wait to join the Dutch resistance, to the dismay of his father, who, as mayor, works to prevent escalations in the village.
Doodslag (Dutch for “Manslaughter”) is the story of Max, a paramedic who is repeatedly hindered in performing his duties by loutish behaviour. As his ambulance hurries towards a complicated childbirth, some youths prevent Max from reaching the distressed woman in labour. Spurred on by the emergency and the incendiary words of a TV pundit, he reaches a boiling point and forcefully hits one of the men obstructing his ambulance. Max’s strike has far-reaching, unintended consequences.
Divided into chapters, the film first chronicles Hemel’s many sexual conquests, but then takes on a different tone as it explores her complicated relationship with her father, Gijs. A dapper auctioneer, Gijs has dated a series of younger women since Hemel’s mother’s death. But when Gijs starts seeing the charming Sophie, for the first time Hemel feels that her special relationship with her father is threatened…
In 1933, after leaving Dogville, Grace Margaret Mulligan sees a slave being punished at a cotton farm called Manderlay. Officially slavery is illegal and Grace stands up against the owners of the farm. She stays with some gangsters in Manderlay and tries to influence the situation. But when harvest time comes Grace sees the social and economic reality of Manderlay.
The filmed account of a large Canadian rock festival train tour.
Meat the Truth is a high-profile documentary which forms an addendum to earlier films on climate change. Although such films have succeeded in drawing public attention to the issue of global warming, they have repeatedly ignored one of the most important causes of climate change: the intensive livestock production. Meat the Truth draws attention to this by demonstrating that livestock farming generates more greenhouse gas emissions worldwide than all cars, lorries, trains, boats and planes added together.
Eduard Zuiderwijk (Marco Borsato) runs a restaurant in Africa. When his wife (Ricky Koole) suddenly dies, he is left to take care of his son Thomas (Siebe Schoneveld) on his own. When his son’s best friend Abu (Andrew Kintu) is abducted by a rebel leader to be trained as a child soldier, Eduard goes in pursuit to save the boy and regain his son’s respect.
Bennie, a clumsy criminal who’s touchy about his weight, teams up with his adoptive father’s biological (serial killer) son, his employees who in his absence turned his snack-bar into a quiche bakery, a suicidal manic-depressive woman and a Yougoslavian who keeps unintendedly blowing things up. They need to get 300000 Euro to get Bennies father a new liver. Complicating matters are that Bennie is
A documentary about the expanding powers of the European Union.
Brain scientist Professor Richard Davidson sets up his mind to conduct an unusual experiment: He will teach American war veterans and children meditation and yoga. Can veterans through meditation and yoga ease their pain and nervous system, find happiness and be more peaceful and get back to a life more like the one they had before the war?
Kevin Burke a young executive for a multinational investment bank, is a rising star in the Rotterdam office. Rewarded for his perceptive eye and mastery of foreign languages, Kevin receives the promotion he has been working for – a coveted spot on the company’s internal security team. Trained by the enigmatic Mr. Ficks to protect the firm’s employees in volatile, third world markets, Kevin thinks he has a shield for every arrow. And this makes him feel safe, or at least “safer” than he’s felt since his father’s mysterious death. Karl Jorgensen, the Managing Director of the bank, is Kevin’s boss and surrogate father. He has mentored Kevin over the years, which makes his biological son, Karl Jorgensen Junior, visibly jealous. Jorgensen brushes off the “sibling rivalry”, but clearly favors Kevin, molding him into a confident, young man. It is this confidence that gives Kevin the courage he needs to propose to the woman he loves…
Dutch twin sisters travel to America to look for their long-lost mother.
Two troubled youths break out of their halfway house and make their way to one’s home.
Two teen track stars discover first love as they train for the biggest relay race of their young lives.
A woman diagnosed with terminal lung cancer gathers her three dearest friends together to make the most of the time she has left.
Juan and his urban family live in the Mexican countryside, where they enjoy and suffer a world apart. And nobody knows if these two worlds are complementary or if they strive to eliminate one another.
A horror film that depicts St. Nicholas as a murderous bishop who kidnaps and murders children when there is a full moon on December 5.
Ex-cons Victor and Rico have masterminded a foolproof plan to abduct millonaires’ daughter Laura Temming. When she is kidnapped and placed in a remote and soundproofed room, gradually the power relations shift. Exactly who is the perpetrator and who is the real victim?
Bringing Up Bobby is the story of a European con-artist and her son Bobby, who find themselves in Oklahoma in an effort to escape her past and build a better future. Olive and Bobby blithely charm their way from one adventure to another until Olive’s criminal past catches up with her. Consequently, she must make a choice: continue with a life of crime or leave the person she loves most in an effort to give Bobby a proper chance in life.
A look at the extraordinary world of Penthouse founder, visionary and provocateur Bob Guccione.
The bizarre story takes place in Amsterdam-West, where a virus turns people into bloodthirsty zombies. Although much blood is flowing and many limbs chopped off, there is a lot to laugh at in this bizarre horror comedy.
Elizabeth, a voluptuous, shy and unpopular girl, is the object of ridicule at school by the cool in-crowd. Her life spirals downward after the death of her only friend, her grandmother. But she has a crush on a popular boy at school, and a deranged plan to make all her dreams come true!
A home invasion irrevocably changes the lives of all involved in ways neither victims nor perpetrator could have imagined
Hartenstraat is set in the Nine Streets district of Amsterdam. It is a village in a big town and everyone seems to be looking for love. As the womanizer Bas, seniors Bep and Aart and the couple Rein and Jacob. The only one who is not looking for love is Daan. He lives here with his daughter Saar in Hartenstraat, where he has his own business as a caterer. Then Katje appears in his life. The pretty fashion designer opens a fashion boutique next door to Daan. When her catering unexpectedly cancels just before opening her shop Katje must appeal to Daan. That is asking for trouble since the two opposite each other in everything. Yet Katje also secretly has an eye on her neighbor, especially now that her current relationship with Thomas is not going strong.
Three teenagers appear to have a lot of fun on the children’s oncology department on the fourth floor of a large hospital. Nick (14) and Iwan (15) both lost a leg as a result of bone cancer. For their friend Olivier (16) an amputation may be the next phase. The fourth of the bunch, Pepijn (15), is so ill and weak that he often stays in his room. Friendship and a deep desire to live keeps the guys mentally balanced. And of course their interest in sexy girls makes them act like any ordinary teenager. They make jokes about their illness. They call each other “sickos”. The sickos cannot walk, but with their wheelchairs they do risky stunts and organise joyrides in the corridors of the hospital. Their friendship changes when Gina (16) arrives. The boys try to seduce her, but Gina is not interested at first, until she realises that her stay in the hospital will be a lot less depressive when she has friends. Sickos is a humorous drama that deals with adolescence and chemotherapy
Loosely inspired by the director’s own memory of a girl’s disappearance from her village, the film follows Arlene (Antonia Campbell-Hughes), a young factory worker living alone in a rural Irish community.
Tuscan Wedding, the new romantic comedy from the creators of Loving Ibiza. Together with her father Tom and stepmother Marla, Sanne runs Casa Matrimonio, a luxurious villa in sunkissed Italy. The estate is located in Tuscany, a beautiful region where many couples go to have their perfect wedding. In Casa Matrimonio guests come together to celebrate love and life. A Tuscan Wedding is the apotheosis of everyone’s visit to the country side. And for some the villa is all too familiar as they return again and again: because some people only marry twice.
Isabelle is a famous and beloved actress from the Netherlands, who disappears when on Holiday in Belgium. She has been kidnapped by bartender Jeanne Bitor, an artist with a disfigured face. Jeanne is very bitter about her ‘ugly’ appearance, and she is obsessed with the process of dying and deterioration of animals and humans. Therefore, she abducts Isabelle and starves her to death, while painting her in different phases of the process.
The main hero of the film is an electrician with a far greater effect on the people around him than his job defines. He is the last link in a huge energetic system and he becomes the binding bridge between the geopolitical problems of post-soviet space and the common people. The economic devastation of the country had an enormous impact on the industrial workers and yet despite the upheaval, these people did not seize to love and suffer, to have and be friends and to enjoy their lives. In particular our resilient electrician, who possesses a wonderful and open heart. He not only brings electric light (which is often out) to the lives of the inhabitants of this small city, but he also spreads the light of love, loyalty, life and mainly laughter.
When Eva opens her eyes a young girl finds herself chained terrified for being abused. Her fears become reality in a way no one could ever imagine.
A wandering warrior finds an unlikely friend in the form of a young dragon. The two develop a close bond, until one day the dragon is snatched away. She then sets out on a relentless quest to reclaim her friend, finding in the end that her quest exacts a far greater price than she had ever imagined.
1-900-TONIGHT (Somewhere Tonight) is an urban fable that tells the story of two lonely New Yorkers trying to find companionship over an adult chat phone line. John Turturro plays Wooly, a simple, curiously odd bike messenger hoping to hear a bit of ‘spicy’ talk from Patti (Katherine Borowitz), an agoraphobic shut-in. Although each is not what the other hopes they will be, together they prove that wisps of enchantment can be found in even the most overlooked of hearts. And that hope takes on many unexpected shades. Inspired by slain Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh’s 06. Written by Michael Di Jiacomo
Marina, Sofia and Violeta deal differently with the death of their grandmother.
An hour before the five best Dutch dance crews fly to a contest in New York, the subsidized trip is cancelled. Five dancers from totally different crews don’t want to give up their free plane ticket and go anyway. In New York they realize what they’ve done. They have no money, no plan and no crew. But… They came to dance so there is only one thing to do. Together they form a new crew and do everything they can to enter the contest they came for. In the mean time… they have to survive two weeks in New York without any cash. Written by Tijs van Marle
Naomi, a fifteen year-old Dutch girl from South-Amsterdam, develops a crush on a beautiful Arabic girl of the same age living in the poor quarters of Amsterdam West. During one magical summer in Amsterdam, the two girls play an emotional chess game of love, seduction and attraction.
A political essay on the absurd dilemmas presented by asylum policies. In a classroom, migrants’ illusions are dashed against the rocks of European arrogance.
