Open Seas

Michiel van Erp shows us what the Dutch do in their spare time and takes a look at the industry behind all these leisure activities.

Whoever wanted a sex reassignment surgery in the 1950's could do so in Casablanca, at French gynaecologist Georges Burou's clinic, without fear of psychological examination. The French transgender singer known as Coccinelle was one of the first to use Burou’s services, and many others followed. Michiel Van Erp’s film follows five women who underwent surgery during that time, just before the sexual revolution and the Gay Liberation movement of the 1960's. Intimate interviews reveal their lifestyle, what made them change their sex, how it influenced their lives, and how they cope with the unavoidable ageing.

Dutch photographer Erwin Olaf (1959) is on the threshold of an important year: his most recent photographic series, Hope, Grief and Rain appear to have given him an international breakthrough. His work has been criticized since the 1980s as being produced merely for its shock value, thus eliminating it as art. But now that important art dealers and museums all over the world are showing his works, and huge crowds are visiting his expositions, it seems as if his years of hard work will finally lead to serious recognition. Yet this is occurring, of all times, in a period of his life in which Erwin Olaf is contending with emphysema, a debilitating disease that obliges him to deal cautiously with his energy reserves. Whether his body can keep up with his work pace is uncertain.

The tropical plant Divina Gloria comes to fruition once every hundred years. For the duration of only one night she shows her exuberant beauty. Then she dies. In this bittersweet comedy we follow a number of people in the Hortus Botanicus, who witness this short-lived bloom. During the night, they become more and more entranced by this sultry miracle, with an ecstatic outcome.

Sara is recently divorced and decides to register for a 'From Fear to Love' retreat on the Italian volcanic island of Stromboli but she is confronted with the painful past she has been trying to hide.

In Fear, documentary filmmaker Michiel van Erp creates a collage of inhabitants of the city of Amsterdam who struggle with various anxiety disorders. Today, more patients with anxiety disorders seek professional help than those who suffer from depression, making anxiety the number one mental illness in the Netherlands. This film will show how a small number of those patients attempt to overcome their fears, in order to get on with their lives in the crowded cosmopolitan city that Amsterdam is today.

Thirty years ago Sylvia Kristel became world-famous with 'Emmanuelle'. This erotic film was the starting point of a curious career, during which Sylvia acted in more than 50 international film productions, including a short-lived career in Hollywood. A turbulent life followed, in which alcohol and drug addictions formed a recurring theme. Penniless, she now lives in a small two-room apartment in Amsterdam. Last year La Kristel took control of her life: her autobiography Nue was published in France and has already been sold to several countries.