Dragan Bakema
Haunted by a shadowy past, the wife of a rising star in Amsterdam's mayoral office finds herself drawn into the city’s underworld of sex and drugs.
When Alexander suddenly leaves on a road trip to France, Lukas decides to join him as he’s been trailing his charismatic brother for his entire life. But during this journey he discovers that he finally has to go his own way, not knowing this decision would be so all-encompassing.
When Ralf traverses the city at night, he gets involved with the escort girls he drives around as little as possible. But when the blonde Kelly gets in his cab, he is caught unawares by her provocative and unpredictable attitude, also because she has a disarming quality. He has to do his very best to keep his distance. Their whole conversation takes place inside the cab, with many close-ups of their faces, while the street lights flash across the windscreen and the city glides by almost invisibly.
The Paradise Suite is a story about six people finding each other and, sometimes with just one glance, influencing each other's lives irreversibly. For the beautiful young Bulgarian Jenya, her journey to Amsterdam turns out to be the opposite of what she hoped for. Her grueling captivity forces the angelic African, Yaya, to fight for her freedom - a dangerous fight in which he loses everything but his beloved faith. The Serbian war criminal Ivica, who has just become a father, is painfully confronted with the fact that crimes will never go unpunished. Bosnian Seka has nothing left to live for except her vengeance but as it turns out, it's that same vengeance that brings love back in her life. And when the Swedish piano-wonder boy, Lukas, runs away from his new temporary home, his father Stig finally realizes that their mutual passion for music damages their relationship.
How do you deal with the fact that someone close to heart has suddenly disappeared without a trace? Can you go on living whilst waiting for his return?
An Albanian emigrant is caught in Amsterdam among the promise and allure of the sin-filled city.
When Eva opens her eyes a young girl finds herself chained terrified for being abused. Her fears become reality in a way no one could ever imagine.
William, Jack and Chris have been friends for as long as they can remember - until that day in April when Jack ends up under the wheels of a tractor, his body crushed, William at the wheel. Suddenly nothing is left of the boys' friendship. Chris tries his best, but William is one lump of impenetrable rock, secretly wondering if the events of the night before, when Jack went off with fifteen-year old Marianne, had anything to do with the accident...
Three women in the big city pass each other daily but never really get to know each other. How much difference could a little bit more contact make?
A psychiatrist's adulterous past continues to haunt her and her husband after they move to India.
Joy is an emotionally damaged young woman of eighteen, who was given up at birth, to grow up in homes and with foster families. She lives on the fringes of society, getting by on benefits and earning a little extra by playing the accordion in the subway. In addition, she is a skilled shoplifter and has never been caught.
Vox Populi is a black comedy about an experienced politician suffering from a midlife crisis. When he comes into contact with the common-man's logic of his new in-laws, this has a far-reaching effect on both his political and his personal life.
Olivier calls himself a 'statistical miracle'. He is almost 27 years old but the doctors had predicted that, because of the heart disease he was born with, he would not get much older than 25 years. He doesn't seem to be suffering from the threat of death closing in on him. With unbridled energy, he parties, smokes, drinks and dances until deep into the night, and in the morning wakes up in bed next to girls he doesn't even know. His family and friends alienate from him because of this life style, and the fact that he doesn't have long lasting relationships, doesn't bother him. Olivier lives, day by day. Until new medical technologies make it possible to cure him, and a new future opens up to him. Everybody is happy, but Olivier doesn't know how to deal with the expectations and responsibilities of his new life.
In the trilogy ‘Rain, Sugar, Eye’ thoughts are captured and made visible. Each film is made in one single shot; in which a total shot slowly changes into a close-up. The leading characters in ‘Rain’, ‘Sugar’ and ‘Eye’ are focusing on a detail. Literally seeing another world in this detail causes a fundamental change of their ideas about this reality. In ‘Eye' a man and a woman look each other so profoundly in the eyes that they experience the impossibility of a symbiosis.
What happens if you take the law into your own hands, start correcting the legal system on your own initiative? Hans Croiset, André van den Heuvel, Bram van der Vlugt and Kitty Courbois in their roles of aged resistance heroes do not think this is such a bad idea; in fact, it is what they already did during World War II. Back then, they formed a sworn resistance gang. The occasion for their renewed fighting spirit is the brutal robbery and murder of Marjan, one of the members of their former group. Past and present start blending. In a controlled tempo, alert to detail and acting, a story unravels that focuses on Hans Croiset in the role of Simon, a retired teacher of Dutch. He makes contact with the underworld, meeting the Slavic Goran, who starts feeling sympathy for the old man. Eventually, fate lies in Simon's hands.
Two passionate people, Marleen and Vince, embark on a scorching love affair. They are sucked down by the fierceness of their feelings and literally drown in them..
Fifteen-year-old Sammy has recently become aware of desires she awakens in men but one man to whom she is herself attracted is her older brother Jacob. With an institutionalized father and a mother neither sibling has seen for years, Jacob provides for the household through his trade in meat declared unfit for human consumption. This situation has sufficed for years but the dedication with which Jacob watches over his little sister leaves her no room to mature as a woman...
