Ad van Kempen
A man wakes up lost in a dark place in the middle of the journey of his life.
A teenager struggling with his gender attempts to reconcile with his identity.
Amsterdam, Netherlands, 1944, during World War II. Andries Riphagen, a powerful underworld boss, has made his fortune by putting his many criminal talents at the service of the Nazi occupiers. But the long battle is about to end and the freedom fighters, who have been persecuted and murdered for years, are abandoning their hideouts to mercilessly hunt down those who have collaborated with the killers…
A perfectly happy couple believe they live their dream when they expect their first child. That dream is shattered when the child dies, leaving them to cope with their loss, their environment, and ultimately themselves.
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.
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.
Thijs is a ripe-age Dutch tomato grower. His adult daughters plan to have him move in a skyscraper-flat, leaving home and professional life, but he takes his adolescent (half-)Moroccon grandson Omar's advice to refuse and keep living. Thijs even lets the cheerful rascal coach his love-life, which lands him on a blind date with Jacky, an energetic Flemish woman, who won't take no for an answer but turns up at his door-step till he consents, and soon drags him into evening life, preparing for a dance contest. Soon after Omar turns up, listless and lazier then ever, runaway from school and home. The obvious reason for the horny hound's hanging head is a girl: Mergal is foxy, Turkish and as smitten as he, but her burly big brother Erhan will only allow a boy to go steady with her who has proven himself his better on the field in the traditional manly sport of oil-wrestling. Now Thijs...
Sarah, 30, single, well educated, likes art, places a voice ad for phone sex, inviting replies from men under 35, sturdy and sensual. Wilbert, a chubby middle aged architect, leaves a message that he is Thomas, 32 and well formed. A week later, she phones. She likes his voice, he likes her laugh, so once a week she phones him (he's not to know her last name, where she lives, or her number). Portraits emerge of humor and sadness. He presses for details of her life and tells her about his work; she wants these Thursday calls to be fantasy and release, separate from the rest of who she is. The film dramatizes these tensions of lies and truth, connection and distance. Written by
As years pass, the Craets-Goldeweyn family must cope with the disappearance of the familiar and the inescapable new that imposes itself.
Tragicomedy about sixty year old housewife Joanna who shows her true colors for the first time in her life when she is confronted by her daughter Isabel with her shortcomings as a person and a mother.
