Netherlands

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Through her very real subject Edgar Figner, director Nathalie Alonso Casale offers us an intimate sense of the 21st-century Russian zeitgeist. A true alchemist, Mr. Figner has spent his life in Leningrad (St. Petersburg) as a sound-effects artist at Lenfilm Studios, where from the silent era to the present he has used commonplace objects (cabbages, old shoes) to create complex sound effects for films. Under the pressures of contemporary Russian life, Figner begins to retreat into a past comprising his own personal history and the history of Russian cinema. As reality and memory blend with stunning scenes from Soviet films, Figner’s art becomes a soundtrack for the muffled culture created by the repression of the Soviet era. This delicate mix of documentary, reality and cinematic imagination creates a deeply sensitive account of the silences at the heart of the Russian social, political and cinematic experience.Read More »

With very little dialogue, this Dutch film artfully details the declining years of the legendary master artist, Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-69), who ended his days in near-poverty. In the movie, van Rijn has just moved to Amsterdam and, following the death of his wife, takes to riotous living with easy women and too much drink, spending himself into penury. The filmmakers have taken great care to ensure that what is seen on the screen resembles the lively paintings of the Great Master himself. (Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide)Read More »

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The central character in Rooksporen is a woman who finds herself facing an interrogator. Around these interrogation scenes are scenes in which 26 witnesses (from A to Z) are introduced: first in their houses and then in a space adjacent to the interrogation room. The questioner has an ambiguous identity and function: he directs his questions at the woman and then turns away only listening and watching as a sounding-board, to the witnesses. And the witnesses also have an elusive identity. Who or what they are remains unclear, they exist thanks to the sensuality and/or obscurity of their language. It is also far from clear what the woman is accused of. Most witnesses eventually think she is guilty, but what of remains the question. Read More »

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A man performs infectious playlets for his surroundings.

A court-jester without a king. The protagonist in the film is an actor (René van het Hof) who is acting his life. He is a nuisance, but only for those who have had enough of his play acting or who are ashamed to be around this clown. His wife breaks up with him because she just can’t tolerate the man any more and he seems to accept that in an apparently matter-of-fact way. He leaves the city for a cottage in the countryside. He soon has a new audience. The woman next door and her daughter are curious to make his acquaintance and are at once enthusiastic about the ingenious simplicity of the shows by this nuisance who is not yet a nuisance to them, but a welcome change in there all-too-ordinary life. Read More »

Synopsis
Insurance agent Peter de Wilde lives with his wife Marjan in the Dutch city of Almere. Marjan is a stewardess and is away often. Peter is desperately trying to make her pregnant, but so far he hasn’t succeeded.

When the new English speaking neighbors move in across the street, their peace and quiet seems to be over. As it turns out Marjan already has a secret relationship with the new neighbor, Ron, a photographer who travels around the world. Peter doesn’t know this yet, but when his wife and the neighbor are away, he starts (successfully) hitting it of with the wife of the neighbor, Laura.Read More »

Danielle and Marc, two students, fall in love. After a couple of months, they move in together. A few years later, their relationship is in crisis. They take turns running away from each other and running after each other.Read More »

Marcel and Bob are sitting at a small table in a stone house in the middle of a Belgian forest. Wood crackles in the stove, the wind blows through the trees and the two faithful friends drown their sorrows in wine and rum. Both are long-time alcoholics whose families have left them, and together they plan to commit suicide. A tragicomic story about the life of two losers whose mutual friendship gives them strength while at the same time pulls them down. Will at least one of them break out of the vicious circle?Read More »

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The young girl Keetje moves to Amsterdam in 1881 with her impoverished family, and is led into prostitution in order to survive. In the process she sees the corrupting influence of money.Read More »

In an Escher-like staircase, two characters, a man a woman, move around each other, in full view of the bizarre objects in the space: an infinite clock, a miniature surveillance camera, the hose of a vacuum cleaner. The camera always chooses a subjective point of view, namely from the vantage point of one of the objects or characters, who lose themselves in a game of attraction or repulsion. A surreal universe.Read More »