David Verbeek
A new phenomenon of authentic Chinese rap has taken the internet by storm. But behind the unprecedented gains in popularity, there is a struggle for freedom of speech. Rappers are trying to figure out what they still can and cannot do after new censorship is announced.
A Dutch photographer (played by David Verbeek himself – also a talented photographer in real life) takes a picture of a girl in a parking lot in nighttime Taipei as she plays with her kite. The photo transports us into her life. She is eight years old and is about to lose her best friend, a boy from a wealthy family who is moving to America. Back in the Netherlands, the photographer is confronted with his own constant loneliness. The photo of the girl evokes memories of his own childhood, when he still felt at home somewhere.
Full Contact is a contemporary tale of a man trying to find new purpose in life after accidentally bombing a school through a remotely operated drone plane. Ivan, operating the plane from a far away air force base, has never been to the foreign countries of his attacks, nor has he ever touched the plane he uses to kill. Modern warfare keeps him safe and disconnected from his prey. However, after this incident Ivan's disconnectedness starts to apply to everything in his life. He is overwhelmed by feelings of guilt that he is unable to process.
A young woman in Taipei is confronted with the blindness of her mother who is convinced she has a sixth sense. Shot with little facilities, but it is Verbeek’s most mature film - about uprooting, spirituality and modernity.
An enchanting fusion of choreography and cinema, IMMORTELLE is a broken-love story that creatively envisions the trials of separation. Having just split, the protagonists try to go about their daily lives, but lingering feelings materialize into the outside world. Their bare and unwelcoming interiors, echoing the emptiness within, are invaded by cadaveric doubles of the former lovers. These figments of the characters' minds struggle as if in a battle for life and death, the relationship’s dying breath. A deeply emotional experience, this is a film about feelings so strong that, in their quest for closure, they overpower reality.
A group of professional 'host boys' work in a local club, where Chinese women come for company, attention and sometimes with the hope of finding love. The host boys are there to entertain, to give attention and to make sure that their customers return and spend more and more money. This is all about the illusion of a possible relationship, the illusion of friendship. With emotional addiction as a result. On their part most of the time, the host boys lose total control of their private life, as a result of all the lies and fake promises. They don't trust life, they don't believe in love anymore and cannot keep fake and truth from each other.
R U THERE is the story of Jitze (20), a professional gamer who travels around the world to compete in video game tournaments. During a stay in Taipei he unexpectedly witnesses an accident, which confronts him with his own mortality and makes him doubt the certainties of his existence. When he meets a Taiwanese betelnut girl he is attracted to, he only manages to get close to her in Second Life, which serves to compound his doubts.
Young Dutch director made an (almost) entirely Chinese film. In a city where everything is new, an outsider is in any case no more out of place than the locals. Cinematographic portrait of modern life in the mega-city of Shanghai is made up of three separate stories about dreams and loves of twentysomethings.
Slightly bored, two young Chinese people circle around each other in modern Shanghai. She works in a trance club, he is a DJ. In the daytime they are at home together, but their relationship seems to have reached a stalemate. They hardly communicate and have arguments about nothing. A meeting with her ex in the street sets the young woman thinking. She started dressing differently and took a new hairstyle, but has she really changed?
A group of young and spoiled rich kids turn into vampires after a night out, changing the course of their lives and driving a wedge between them all.
