Hoerenpreek

In the heart of the Middle East, a metropolis is mushrooming. In Dubai, the city where anything seems possible, one after the other skyscraper shoots up. To realise the property developers' plans, workers are called in from India, Pakistan and Nepal, who earn a mere pittance. Just like the nannies and cleaning women of well-to-do expats. Eighty percent of the inhabitants of Dubai come from other parts of the world, so who calls this city home? The original inhabitants saw the city change and now contend with religious and social taboos, something that completely passes by the average expat. In a photography class, students of various origins show how they experience the city. Apparently, original residents, expats and workers live mostly separate lives in a class society where the labourer is driven into the ground and the rich housewife thinks everyone in the city is happy.

A sea faring father, a man living on the edge of mental sanity, periodically sees his young son. During the visits, the father tells the boy stories, exotic as well as close to home, about Magonia. This is a mythical place where clouds represent impossible dreams and unfulfilled desires. But the characters in this imaginary place all curiously resemble people now living near the father.

Originally from the southwest of the Netherlands, Sandra Roelofs met Mikheil Saakashvili while studying in Strasbourg. She fell for this politically-minded Georgian’s relentless charm and followed him first to the United States and then to his homeland. She was present when, partly under his leadership, the Georgian government was deposed during the Rose Revolution in 2003, and again at his inauguration as president, and 10 years later at his electoral defeat, partly brought about by the release of photographs of torture in Georgian prisons and the growing corruption of the government in power. The camera follows Roelofs over the course of her last year as Georgia’s First Lady. Backed by a wealth of archive material, she talks about her love for her husband and his country, about how power changed him, and about their family life and the pain caused by their physical separation.

Born in Abkhazia and raised in Soviet Georgia, Sipa Labakhua had to flee with his family to Moscow when the USSR collapsed and war broke out early 90’s. Years after his untimely return to his warridden birthplace, Sipa takes to the road with his autobiographical one-man marionette show. While provoking audiences with his own history of displacement and war, he collects the personal memories and dreams of people from different backgrounds: Abkhazian nationalists, Orthodox priests, Syrian refugees, Georgian farmers and Russian hippies.

"Slightly absurdist sketch of a Dutch female reporter who gets stuck in a Georgia devoid of petrol." - IFFR

On the flat island of Texel, Marie is a girl who has a vivid imagination who dreams about mountains. She feels oppressed by the strict religious island community and its narrow-minded way of life. Being the only girl in a big and poor family during wartime, she doesn't have much of a choice than to marry Paul, the beachcomber’s son. From the moment a regiment of Georgians are stationed on the island, Marie’s life changes and flourishes. With their film, music, and especially with their inventive, unusual survival strategies and entirely different life style, this isolated group of outsiders and in particular the young soldier Goga opens a new way for Marie. Through them, she realizes all her dreams without fear.