Gerard Thoolen
Documentary about the Dutch theatregroup the Werktheater. The aim of the company was to create socially relevant theater by means of cooperative processes and improvisation. They often played their performances on location, such as in hospitals, prisons, healthcare institutions and schools. In this documentary, those involved are interviewed about this remarkable theater group.
A troubled detective befriends a single woman and her daughter with the intention of using them as bait for a serial killer.
A man from the province looks back on his graduation year, some teachers, the parental home and especially his father.
A chimney sweep’s daredevil antics are meant to keep a young woman from jumping off the roof. But does she really want to jump? Or does he maybe? A street sweeper is watching and passes the hat round for our hero. Or is he part of the act too?
Composer Misha Mengelberg collaborates with director Anthony Garner on a commissioned short film to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the death of Mozart.
An exiled magician finds an opportunity for revenge against his enemies muted when his daughter and the son of his chief enemy fall in love in this uniquely structured retelling of the 'The Tempest'.
A lonely man tossed by life and hectored by his landlady finds happiness only with an alley cat.
During the 1976 Soweto uprising, a white school teacher's life and values are threatened when he asks questions about the death of a young black boy who died in police custody.
Alternating comedy and drama this portrait of different families on three floors in an Amsterdam building where the stairs symbolizes the suffering of known urban living alongside each other. Upstairs live two students, including the failed and unemployed singer Karin with Harrie and Wouter down with his demented mother.
This film is about the Jewish girl Sara and the ruin of her family during World War II. Her parents have to live in the Jewish ghetto in Amsterdam, but later they are arrested and deported. Sara decides to flee with her brother and his girlfriend to Palestine. Based on the book by Marga Minco.
The plot revolves around Otto's ice cream parlor, a microcosm of the Nazi invasion, Fascist Dutch bullies and anti-fascist groups
Easter 1965. We see Fien de la Mar as an embittered old woman who makes long phone calls at night with people who would rather not speak to her. Through flashbacks we see her arriving as a young girl on the stage with her father Nap de la Mar. We see her in different stages: when she is already a huge star, when she's on the movie set, when she is a diva with her own theater. And we we see her in her downfall after attempting suicide after her husband's death.
Two brothers end up separated for one of them has mental issues. Meanwhile one of the two follows his dream in becoming a magician. Filled with surrealism and slaspstick moments the film is a speechless adventure of emotions providing laughters and fear, emptyness and joy, but mostly a stunning and memorable visual spectacle.
A lift begins displaying some erratic behavior, like trapping some party goers and nearly suffocating them, and decapitating a security guard. Felix, the technician from the lift company, can't find anything wrong with the circuitry. When he and a nosy reporter begin asking questions of the lift company's electronics partner (Rising Sun Electronics) his boss puts him on a leave of absence. A subsequent visit to a professor leads them to believe that some evil experiments are being conducted.
A husband, half of an entertainment duo, the Nellicos, tells his wife, who is the other half of the duo, that he has another woman. But they cannot discuss this as he tells her only just before they are due to perform in front of a large audience. (BFI)
Hes, an uptight and disaffected social worker reaching retirement, discovers a young woman, Anna, in the closet of an acquaintance who has committed suicide. Realizing that she has been kept in the apartment all her life, he moves in and helps her comes to terms with the complexities of the real world.
TV-adaptation of the performance by the Dutch theatre group 'Het Werkteater'. Three ladies of high society invite homeless people, homeless people and junks to spend a pleasant evening with them, in order to promote communication and integration.
In 1928 in the northern part of the Netherlands, a man has an affair with the wife of one of his friends (who is in jail at the time). Because she abandons her children to move in with him, the police are sent to arrest her. This leads to a dramatic confrontation.
"Conditions" - The improvisation-based performance was inspired by psychiatrists such as RD Laing (Family and Madness) and J. Foudraine (Who is of wood). The Werkteater played this performance 'in the den of the lion': in psychiatric institutions for patients and carers. This led to very intensive and adventurous performances in which 'a lot' always happened. Afterwards the discussions sometimes ran high, but even during the performance the audience sometimes mixed themselves in the scenes.
Documentairy about the progressive theatre group 'Het Werkteater' at their home base on Kattengat 10 in Amsterdam.
The reconstruction of a Dutch political scandal from the 1960s when a PR specialist managed to gain unhealthy influence in government circles. Eventually he became the biggest victim.
