Helena van der Meulen
Zurich is a musical roadmovie about Nina, who discovers after the death of her great love, truckdriver Boris, he led a double life. Struggling with her feelings she comes to an almost unforgivable deed, and flees. She submerges into the truckers scene – not capable to express herself, except by singing.
SWCHWRM is about a boy who wants to be writer and describes his experiences. He uses the pseudonym, V. Swchwrm, because he wants to remain unknown. He describes, among other things, the death of his grandfather and encounters with the queen. SWCHWRM is based on "Mijn avonturen door V. Swchwrm" by Toon Tellegen.
Divided into chapters, the film first chronicles Hemel's many sexual conquests, but then takes on a different tone as it explores her complicated relationship with her father, Gijs. A dapper auctioneer, Gijs has dated a series of younger women since Hemel's mother's death. But when Gijs starts seeing the charming Sophie, for the first time Hemel feels that her special relationship with her father is threatened...
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.
Still continuously on his guard, but with dwindling strength, a man for the last time tries to keep his valuable possessions together. When he can no longer keep all his attackers at bay, his end is near. A life without lust. But the loss also relieves him of a heavy burden.
Felix has been raised by his grandmother and has never met his father. His father Johan, doesn't even know he exists. Felix decides to become a regular in his father's bar in Amsterdam to secretly learn more about the man he has never known.
When Bas puts up the note Wanted: Man on the notice board of the local supermarket for his single mother, she does not know about it. The self-willed Bas tries to find a solution for the separation between him and his mother, who no longer knows how to cope with Bas' superstitious compulsions. And both are hydrophobic. But by the end of the summer, the harmony between these two heart-warming characters has been restored.
Merel is a young girl with a lot of talent. She excels at school, is good on the springboard and is careful too. Her severely handicapped brother Kasper gets a lot of attention. Merel also has talent for singing. It is no surprise that she is asked for the school musical. But maybe Merel is a bit too convinced of herself. When people perform solos, she likes to sing along loudly. This doesn't fall on good ground though. People start ignoring her and she is getting bullied. All of the sudden Merel's life isn't that easy anymore, it will be hard to keep herself together.
Due to excessive rainfall, the Land van Maas en Waal is threatened with flooding. Whereas all villagers have been evacuated, stoic old Jacoba refuses to vacate her little house on the dyke. Filled with a longing for death, she sits and waits for the dykes to give way. She kills time by listening to the radio alerts, by reading the Bible and by praying to God to hurry up. Until she is disturbed by the arrival of her 12-year-old granddaughter Fleur, who foils her plan. Gradually, the film unravels the reason for the old woman's peculiar behaviour, at the bottom of which lie indigestable past events. Despite attempts to get rid of Fleur, the unyielding girl is determined not to abandon her grandma. The confrontation with her grandchild forces the elderly lady to reconsider her intention.
A woman falls in love with a married, Belgian man. She finds out that he's married too late... although it's the second thing he says. The rest of the film is about the struggle of the man between his two loves, and of the woman not able to finish the hopeless and dangerous relationship. The title "tot ziens" (au revoir, a farewell greeting that implicates that one will see eachother again), is the ironic description of the film, which is about going away for good and then coming back again, because something is always stronger than your ratio.
