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- In Ukraine, the KGB archive of countless files containing reports on covert observations has been made accessible to the public. What happens once you find out that the state has been watching you for years? Based on encounters with people who are confronted with their own surveillance reports, the film sketches a time when the paranoia of the Soviet regime infiltrated into private lives.
- Yuri Dmitriev uncovers the buried truths that the current Russian authorities desperately want to erase. After an extensive search, he stumbles upon a mass grave in the pine forests of Karelia, in Northwest Russia, revealing the dark secrets of Stalin's 'Great Terror' in 1937, where thousands were covertly executed. In a relentless pursuit, Dmitriev takes it upon himself to unearth the identities of those lost souls from the archives and diligently organizes commemorative events for their surviving relatives. Through his unwavering efforts, the long-suffering families finally learn the fate of their vanished loved ones. Dmitriev, who was abandoned as a baby in a maternity clinic, becomes a man with a mission: 'As a human being, one should have the right to know their origins and the resting place of their family.' While foreign nations increasingly acknowledge this 'archaeologist of terror,' Dmitriev faces mounting suspicion within Russia, accused of colluding with the West. Eventually, he is unjustly arrested on fabricated charges. Tragically precise, Dmitriev foresees the fate of both himself and his homeland.
- Outside Kolkata a few jute mills crank on, virtually unchanged since the industrial revolution. Powered by steam and sweat, work is a dance to the dictate of profit and century-old machines. The Golden Thread follows the weft and warp of jute work alongside the creative labour of the film's own making. In this near dystopian industrial town can there be a potential for a collective re-imagination?
- For four seasons, lone wolf Eddy van Wessel travels along the Ukrainian front lines. Now that the Netherlands' most awarded war photographer is in the twilight of his successful career, he wants to take the ultimate photo one more time, the image that summarizes the entire conflict and that makes all the struggles, traumas and setbacks he has endured worthwhile. Filmmaker Joost van der Valk followed in his wake during this last period and documents how Van Wessel experiences and records the war through encounters and interactions with Ukrainians. On the other side of the lens, however, you are not immune to all the suffering of war. How do you function as a photographer in the surreal reality of war?
- A search for the soul of legendary singer Donny Hathaway: in a poetic journey through cities like St. Louis, Chicago and New York, the film digs deeper and deeper into his life, up until its tragic end.
- In a classroom newly arrived refugees learn a lesson about multifarious Europe. Operating at the intersection of fiction and documentary, Stranger in Paradise reflects on the power relations between Europeans and refugees in a candid fashion.
- How can we be more inclusive? That is a question that many companies ask themselves, including the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. And there the search for more diversity turns out to be more difficult than expected.
- Documentary about the Blockade of Leningrad during World War II. The film presents an emotional picture of the struggle of some survivors, whose personal memories tend to be overshadowed by the heroic myth held up by the authorities.
- This documentary looks for an answer to the question of why the number of suicides among young American veterans and soldiers of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is so frighteningly high.
- For the very first time, convicted Dutch Muslim terrorists speak out on camera in Robert Oey's The Good Terrorist. A captivating search for answers, to some of the most relevant questions of our time. What moves a terrorist?
- While sailing the world together, a horrible event takes place. Along the coast of Columbia Peter Putker's wife Durdana gets murdered. And although Peter states from the very beginning that it was an attack by pirates, the local authorities do not buy into his innocence. For them, he is the one who killed his own wife. Problem is: only Peter himself was there and only he truly knows what took place that night. The Colombian authorities assign the case to the Dutch court. A grueling lawsuit ensues, in which not only Peter but also his family and friends are confronted with the consequences of not being able to determine with certainty the true course of events. What happens when you're the only one knowing the truth without strong evidence to prove your innocence?
- A raw ode to the miracle of fertility and its transience. The filmmaker followed the trail of the unconventional Dutch Japanese pianist Tomoko Mukaiyama who invited women (and men) to reflect upon this primal theme by means of an art project in Japan. They talk, sometimes for the first time, about children that were or were not born, about sexuality and choices they made. Their stories are interwoven with the music of Bach, sensually interpreted by the pianist, and lead to a Buddhist ritual for unborn children. The pianist and the filmmaker kept silent for a long time about their own deeper motivations. In the course of the creative process and the film, it becomes clear what drives them both, each from her own fate.
- The story of Chechen dance star and choreographer Ramzan Ahmadov, whose dance group Daymohk has found refuge with Chechnya's current president Kadyrov. Momentarily postponing the extinction of this age-old folk dance. But the sacrifice this move takes, is great: in an attempt to save his country's tradition, Ramzan collaborates with the authorities and sacrifices what he loves the most.
- 'MORISOT - The Heart is a Rebel', directed by Klaas Bense, investigates the intriguing life of forgotten female impressionist Berthe Morisot. A woman who courageously broke social conventions by choosing her own path in life.
- Portrait of the popular Dutch singer Andre Hazes.
- At the end of 2019, Arie ends his life at the age of 22. No one saw it coming, not even his younger brother Gijs and his parents. An eerie and confusing time begins for the family as they try to understand what drove Arie to his decision.
- The Red Soul lays bare the Russian psyche of today and shows a world full of contradictions. In a country where hardly any family escaped the hunger, fear and violence resulting from Stalin's reign of terror, no one has ever been convicted for the crimes committed under his regime. Even now, more than 50 years after Stalin's death, Russians remain deeply divided over how to deal with the memories of this painful past.
- Over the last few years, the world of the contemporary arts has been subjected to drastic change. Our modern-day taste is no longer determined by the great museums or by the critics but by dealers and mega rich collectors. This film looks into the transformation of the art world and the consequences this shift of power is having on artists, collectors, dealers, museums and the history of art.
- The Gert and Hermien Story shows the rise and fall of one of the most popular singing duos in Dutch history. This is the tragedy of an artist duo that could not bear the fame and success.
- The travelling exhibition Crimea - Gold and Treasures of the Black Sea are being held hos-tage in the cellars of the Allard Pierson Museum in Amsterdam, and it can't go back home: since the annexation of Crimea by Putin, the art collection has become stateless. The treasures that were excavated on the peninsula have become a plaything in a power struggle between de museums at Crimea and the government in Ukraine. Both parties claim the archeological collection as their own, like roots of their identity. The Netherlands has unwill-ingly become a referee: to which party should the treasures been given back?
- Curacao reveals the collectively repressed legacy of the Dutch on their former colony and offers a disturbing look into the influence this has on the contemporary Curacao community.
- An investigation into why one of Russia's most promising young poets killed himself at the age of 29.
- Robert van Gulik is one of the world's most popular Dutch writers, but relatively unrecognized in his own country.
- Is living in the big city as impersonal and lonely as some say? Why is it so hard for New York women to find Mr. Right? This charming documentary follows Annie, Leigh and Laurie, three single women who know what they want, on their quest to find Mr. Right.
- An intimate portrait of the Dutch filmmaker George Sluizer, best-known for The Vanishing (1988).
- In 1997 the body of Che Guevara was unearthed under a runway in Bolivia. With this discovery the last mystery of his life and death seemed to be resolved. Untill it became apparent that his hands were missing.
- Portrait of Johnny Hoes, the uncrowned king of the tear-jerker, in the year he turns ninety. Hoes appeared to have an infallible sense for the viability of the Dutch tearjerkers. After initially self to have scored many hits (the best known 'Och was ik maar bij moeder thuis gebleven') he captured the market as a producer of tearjerkers and later with Dutch pop-and rock music. 'Doe maar', 'Normaal' and 'Toontje Lager' are some of the groups that released their first records at his company. Hoes had a great nose for the musicality of his artists, but was also a tough businessman: "As an artist you felt: We are just here for business. " Also the old man is without mercy in the lawsuits against him that his grandchildren filed. Hoes himself tells about it in front of the camera, as well do his sons and artists who were previously under contract with him. A portrait of Johnny Hoes is not complete without delicious recordings from old times.
- In How to Meet a Mermaid, the sea becomes a haven for mankind, locked in its struggle with its 'indifferent universe'. Lex, Rebecca, and Miguel each have their own reasons to lay their lives in the hands of the capricious waters. The question remains, however, whether they will find what they so anxiously seek underneath the surface of the waters.
- A documentary about 12 different American fans of Bob Dylan.
- Intersecting inadvertently with Brooklyn's early-21st century battle for a new sports team, BROOKLYN STORIES looks back on the borough's last, the immortal Brooklyn Dodgers. A musician, a dock worker, a homeless man: this assortment of yarn-spinning old-timers traipse around modern Brooklyn while recounting their favorite Dodgers tales, whether of Jackie Robinson or a hard-throwing pitcher, a last-minute loss or a different, more heartbreaking last-minute loss. BROOKLYN STORIES may have sport as its subject but its true subject is the art (and sport) of storytelling. - Jason Sanders
- Badr, David and Jan-Willem can be found on the pitch every weekend, refereeing amateur football matches. They love the game. That is their main motivation. But the weekly moment of responsibility and authority has given them something else: the realization that respect is a valuable but fragile commodity. Especially in the Netherlands today, where people are predominantly preoccupied with their individual interests and all authority is regarded with suspicion. Having refereed for almost twenty seasons, timid Jan-Willem is slowly losing his enjoyment of it. He wonders whether there still is a place on the football pitch for referees like him. David, a young pastor, is a relative newcomer to the game. At the Reformed church where he preaches, his authority is beyond question. But a football pitch is not quite the same as a church. Badr, an ex-marine, learned the nature of authority in the army: discipline, self-control, and respect. As a referee, he likes to pass these qualities on to the players on the pitch... but are today's football players really interested in his good example?
- Will the once famous Sukhumi Primate Center survive?
- n the heart of the Eurasian continent, the ancient center of the world where the Silk Road connected China to Europe, the circus is a deeply rooted cultural phenomenon. This film focuses on two circus artists, whose lifelong friendship under the dictatorship in Uzbekistan is affected by the differing political choices they make under the dictatorshop in Uzbekistan.
- When there will be no next of kin present at a funeral, a custom-written poem is recited by a renowned poet. What does one write for somebody who is no longer known to anyone? In Amsterdam only, a yearly average of fifteen people die whose funeral will be unattended. Be it nameless people, or people with a name, but with one thing in common: there will be no friends or family at their burial or cremation. Led by poet F. Starik a group of Dutch poets, Menno Wigman en Maria Barnas among them, have united in the Pool of Death. They accompany the lonely deceased to the grave by means of a poem specially written for the occasion.
- In this documentary we see three very different people's exceptional report of what they experienced in the no-man's land between life and death.
- Piet Beentjes was last seen in late April 1987 on the Dutch island of Texel. Two men who claim they had never met Piet before came home to discover him on their couch, his clothes in the wash and a meal warming up in the oven. They gave him dry clothes and sent him on his way. After that, Piet was never seen again. Did he have an accident? Did he commit suicide? Was he murdered? Piet's sister Toos has been searching for answers ever since. But mistakes in the investigation-lazy police work, witnesses left uninterviewed and bureaucratic errors-generate more questions than answers. In understated frontal shots, old friends and acquaintances, housemates and family members talk about the disappearance, which is reconstructed in detail from the accounts of the last people to see him, interviews with police officers and a new, private investigation. Against the backdrop of the island's desolate sand dune landscape, the small community living on Texel and the still unanswered questions, Piet Is Gone tellingly evokes the Kafkaesque world into which Toos Beentjes entered on that day in April.
- Putin's Olympic Dream is about the rapid transformation of the city of Sochi. In just a couple of years it has to be refashioned from a nostalgic Soviet holiday resort, filled with gorgeous sanatoriums, into a modern Russian city. The Olympic Winter Games are held here in February 2014, and literally everything and everyone has to yield in order to turn this status project of President Putin into a success.
- This film is a triptych with three stories, involving three characters. They live in different parts of Europe: Western Europe -Catalonia (Spain); Eastern Europe -Lithuania; and in the new Europe -Georgia (Akhazia). They have experienced, in different parts of the 20Th century, civil wars and dictatorships. They share the same fate: they stayed where they were born. This film is about people who decide to do nothing in times of war, oppression and occupation. They choose a life amidst the ruins of their past. Even when this choice leads to loneliness: living a dream, not a reality. Alone, between the graves of their loved ones, they spend their last days. They have frozen their lives by protecting themselves from the outside world.
- Five lively kids use art to escape from the Mandela Park township in Cape Town, South Africa.
- How would we, inhabitants of earth, present ourselves if we were to make contact with extraterrestrial intelligence? Will we manage to speak as one world? There is a small group of people who are seriously taking this unlikely scenario into account. Their daily life is spent looking for signals from extraterrestrial civilizations and wondering how we, earthlings, should present ourselves if we were to make real contact. There is a protocol for the big moment. The wish to speak as one world. But will we manage to do that? Can contact with extraterrestrial beings help to solve the problems of our planet?
- In a little village in The Netherlands, two groups of eighth graders are working hard to create the most beautiful wool float of the year. What starts off as fun, ends up in a battle: who will win the cup, the boys or the girls?
- ALIAS KURBAN SAID attempts to unravel the identity of Kurban Saïd, a pseudonym for the author of a popular novel from the late-1930s.