Maryam Hassouni
A chance opportunity arises for Robert Atkinson, a London banker who risks his bank's money to leave the mundane behind and start a new life. To take advantage, he unwittingly signs up with a Chinese cartel to transport a briefcase to Amsterdam. But all is not as it seems in a city veiled by dark secrets. Fuelled by power players, drugs, seduction and violence, Robert awaits his turn in a deadly game of choice and consequence.
Dutch-Kurdish Ceylan is living the perfect life; and has a nice boyfriend, Bastiaan. However, the war in her homeland is fighting for her attention. She no longer can handle watching the misery on TV without taking action. Therefore she decides to become 'Peshmerga' and say goodbye to her secure life with Bastiaan, maybe forever.
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.
Dunya and Desie are two 18 year old best friends from Amsterdam North. Dunya is Moroccan and Desie is Dutch. On Dunya's Birthday she is told that her marriage has been arranged with a distant cousin in Morocco. Dunya and her family will travel to Morocco to meet him. After Desie discovers that she is pregnant she joins Dunya in Morocco in a search for Desies father.
When they were eleven, the Dutch-Moroccon Naïma and the Japanese Yuichi fell in love. They communicated with their hearts. When they meet again as adults, they face a problem: they don't understand eachother's language...
Anna starts and ends in euphoria: brother and sister Stijn and Brecht have both put the ghosts of the past behind them and she has finally said 'yes' to the tall waiter who has been courting her for so long. In their tragic past, the mysterious Anna plays a key role. When some time later Anna suddenly reappears, she again turns the siblings' life topsy-turvy.
A young, unhappily married moslim woman works at a call centre, conducting telephone surveys. In this impersonal way, she gets in touch with a single man with a sagging couch and a lack of energy. Due to a barking dog, the telephone contact between this unlikely twosome is intensified and eventually even results in a meeting.
Several love stories set in one of the most interesting new cities in the world, Rotterdam.
