Thom Hoffman
Merel, a single midwife, is done with men, but her biological clock is ticking inexorably. And yes, she gets pregnant. However, the whole family suddenly seems pregnant. Her 60-plus father Piet has just become a father again with his young partner and her 23-year-old niece Eva is also expecting. Annet, Merel's older sister, who suffers from the empty nest syndrome, has a husband Theo who only wants to travel because he thinks is too young to become a grandfather.
Agent 327 is investigating a clue that leads him to a shady barbershop in Amsterdam. Little does he know that he is being tailed by mercenary Boris Kloris.
Dutch beer-brewing scion and businessman Freddy Heineken secures his family's legacy through years of ambitious dealings and one infamous kidnapping.
Paris, December. A conductor of a choir is found mysteriously murdered, with burst eardrums. Lionel Kasdan, a police inspertor the verge of retirement, and Frank Salek, an official of Interpol, embark together on a hunt for the killer, and also to a secret organization specializing in kidnapping children.
Series about the life and work of Queen Beatrix, offering a meticulous dramatised interpretation of historical events. The series opens in the Royal tour bus, a few minutes before the attack on Queen’s Day 2009, and goes on to show other tough and fine moments in the monarch’s life. Is she really the business manager on the throne that the media often call her? What is she like as a mother and grandmother? How did she cope with her husband’s depressions and illness?
An intimate portrait of the Great Depression of the 1930′s with scholarly and upbeat comparison to today’s Great Recession.
A successful vascular surgeon is suddenly confronted with a blood phobia, making it impossible for him to exercise his job in the hospital. He moves from the capital to the countryside to work as the GP of a village where he only knows his aunt. His predecessor was well liked, so his new community is less than welcoming. The empathic capabilities of the doctor leaves much to be desired, making it even harder for him to win his place in the close-knit community.
The relationship between Wolfs and Eva will be put to the test. Wolfs is imprisoned for stealing money from the government and Eva tries to forget about him. When Wolfs regains his freedom due to a technicality, he associates himself with a bunch of criminals. Wolfs and Eva meet again in a world where where not everything is what it seems...
This cross-media documentary (film, installation and website) explores the life and writings of Daniel Paul Schreber. Now famous as an Outsider Artist, Schreber was a successful lawyer, who in 1893, started to receive messages from God via a ‘Writing Down Machine’ that spanned the cosmos. He spent the next nine years confined to an asylum. This is his story.
A film inspired on the true story of the two abducted children of Janneke Schoonhoven. She struggled 2 years to get her abducted children back to Holland, from the father that took them to Syria.
A wandering warrior finds an unlikely friend in the form of a young dragon. The two develop a close bond, until one day the dragon is snatched away. She then sets out on a relentless quest to reclaim her friend, finding in the end that her quest exacts a far greater price than she had ever imagined.
Karen (32) and Michel (36) move with their daughter to an exclusive residential area. She soon finds a new close circle of friends: the women of the Dinner Club, and their husbands. But when two of the Club members commit suicide under suspicious circumstances, Karen starts to have second thoughts about her new friends. She has to choose: will she reveal the truth and dish the dirt, or will she protect the interests of the Dinner Club?
Nature documentary about a young wildebeest in the wilderness of Africa. The gnu calf strays from the herd and comes upon a lioness that kidnaps it. Instinctively, it treats the lion like its mother. And miraculously enough, the lioness does not see the calf as its prey. Like a true Survivor, the calf manages to escape from the lion's den and find its way back to its real mother.
Op zoek naar Mary Poppins was a 2009 talent show-themed television series produced by the AVRO in the Netherlands and broadcast on AVRO. It premiered in late August 2009. The show searched for a new, unknown lead to play Mary Poppins in a Dutch production of the Dutch musical Mary Poppins. The show was hosted by Frits Sissing with Willem Nijholt again overseeing the programme. In the final, on 24 January, Noortje Herlaar was announced as the winner of the series.
In the Nazi-occupied Netherlands during World War II, a Jewish singer infiltrates the regional Gestapo headquarters for the Dutch resistance.
The inevitable fat cigar between his fingers, the American actor, director and fine artist Dennis Hopper (1936) self-mockingly looks back on his chequered life and career, at the request of Dutch director, photographer and fine artist Thom Hoffman. The latter sifted through the turbulent life story of Hopper, who is primarily known from the cult film Easy Rider (1969). Hopper went through as many high as low points. In conveniently arranged chapters, Hoffman shows the decisive moments in Hopper's life and asks colleagues like Wim Wenders, David Lynch, Sean Penn and Julian Schnabel to comment on them. The documentary is richly illustrated with film excerpts, photos, newspaper articles and anecdotes. The main reason for this film was the retrospective of Dennis Hopper's art work in the Amsterdam Stedelijk Museum in 2001.
A barren soundstage is stylishly utilized to create a minimalist small-town setting in which a mysterious woman named Grace hides from the criminals who pursue her. The town is two-faced and offers to harbor Grace as long as she can make it worth their effort, so Grace works hard under the employ of various townspeople to win their favor. Tensions flare, however, and Grace's status as a helpless outsider provokes vicious contempt and abuse from the citizens of Dogville.
The gripping story of the Dutch Bettien Martens, based on true facts. After making an incredible career in the international narcotics world during 1984-1992, Bettien was arrested at Piazza Navona in Rome as one of the targets of the International Police Operation "Green Ice". Bettien decided to cooperate with the police and because of her testimonies, many precious arrests were made. As of then, Bettien became a "Pentita" and now is a guest of the "Witness Protection Program".
The Detour is about a young woman travelling through Europe in search of herself and the truth of life. It is based on meetings between goatherd Joanna and Austrian author and playwright Thomas Bernhard. Joanna is lost after her boyfriend dumps her at a Women's Relief Centre in Rotterdam. She works in a library and visits the theatre, where she first sees a play by Thomas Bernhard. Bernhard's philosophy permeates Joanna's thoughts. When Camille invites her to visit the French Pyrenees, she accepts. On the way, she decides to visit Bernhard in Austria. She attempts to start a relationship with him and thereby finds herself.
An American ornithologist meets a French student on a trip to the Basque Country in 1975.
This transnational production featuring a South African- born director, a Dutch leading man, and a Japanese cast and crew tells the story of a passionate love affair between a convict and a porn star, which is undone by greed and private ghosts. Escaping from the Japanese police, Jack meets Keiko, a money-hungry adult film actress and the younger sister of his ex-wife. He takes refuge in her flat and soon they fall in love. Jack is unable to leave her apartment because he quickly learns that both the police and the dreaded yakuza are after the criminal. He grows distraught and despondent, spending hour upon hour alone as Keiko works long hours on the set. At one point, Keiko visits the yakuza don who placed the hit on Jack and agrees to hand him over in exchange for a pile of cash. But she has one stipulation: that she get to spend three days with her soon-to-be deceased lover. The boss agrees only if she engages in kinky sex with him. The deal seems set until unforeseen events occur.
The true story of the 19th century Belgian priest, Father Damien, who volunteered to go to the island of Molokai, to console and care for the lepers.
After losing sight of each other for 25 years, the paths of three childhood friends cross paths. It concerns successful conductor Victor Slingeland, successful writer Sander Vastenhout and general practitioner Bert Duprez. Slingeland enjoys a reputation as a womanizer. This intrigues Vastenhout who, as is often the case with authors, is without inspiration. Vastenhout sees the unraveling of Slingeland's complex personality as possible new material for a novel. With the help of Dr. Duprez, Vastenhout tries to find out about Slingeland's secret by imitating his behavior and thus challenging him.
A troubled detective befriends a single woman and her daughter with the intention of using them as bait for a serial killer.
A female writer bases her newest book on the affair she had with her publisher in this Dutch drama. Lin is the glamorous writer who finds herself pulled out of a canal by two riverboat men. Her story is told in flashback. Her recently published book "Wildgroei"(Dutch for "Wild Growth") chronicled her one-sided passion for her publisher Emile who chose Lin's sister Marot instead.
This melodramatic film follows Eline Vere, as she attempts to break free from the confines of her narrow existence in The Hague through three tumultuous and ultimately disastrous courtships. Adaptation of Louis Couperus' novel Eline Vere.
Frank de Roover returns to the village of his birth, Portland. There he reconnects with his childhood friends Peter and Koos, as well as the girl all three of them fell in love with, Lili.
Lily works as a checkout girl at the local supermarket. She becomes pregnant, but before the child is born, the black father is attacked by skinheads and killed. Following his death, she flees to the city, where she soon finds herself under the wings of a pimp, Ted. Escaping Ted, she commences a one-woman spree of thefts, culminating in running from the police and the press. In the end, Lily must make a choice between freedom, and her baby.
A man of independent means oddly suited to survival amid the chaos of modern life, Inni Wintrop is a committed dabbler, content to casually wander the streets of Amsterdam, follow the dips and rises of the stock exchange and commodities market, speculate in art and love, and write a newspaper horoscope column. But his inconsistencies are interrupted when he meets two men who are the epitome of order and regulation.
Frans van de Staak, Holland's most prominent avant-garde director, made this film "...about people who want to get something done. I leave out the why as well as the results. What's left is the moment of endeavour. There are two couples. The four characters are played by eight actors. There is little dialogue. Sometimes a couple does not seem to live together, just to be alive together in the same room. Each one of them at one time walks through an anymous part of Amsterdam. They put their feet down with a will, clicking their way through town. We do not know where or why they are going. To a meeting, to get some exercise, nowhere? They have difficulty in communicating. They leave notes to each other on the table rather than talk. The film sometimes mocks their intensity. It is surprising that such a strange film can keep the viewer's attention for an hour and a quarter. But it certainly does. (Dutch Fim 1988-89)
The dark, odd humor of Frits, a somewhat lost young man in his early 20s, who still lives at home and can't seem to make the leap to full adulthood is appealing, with a undertone of sadness. And the film shares his vaguely surreal, blackly comedic outlook. His mantra; "Things are bad. Otherwise I'm fine."
After his wife Marjan has died in a car crash, Philip de Wit becomes a total wreck. Only after months does he return to a more or less normal life and even then he only works in his wife's bookstore. A year later Eileen walks in the store, a girl from Northern Ireland with her baby in her arms. When Philip sees her, he's dumbfounded, for she's the spitting image of his dead wife. Obsessed with her, he goes and tries to find her again, but he soon finds out that he's not the only one who's looking for Eileen.
Paul has a full-time lover, an older English woman whose common sense and down-to-earth qualities more than compensate for her relative lack of passion. After all, he is surrounded by women clamoring for time with him in bed. So are all the other men in the story. When one of his sons dies suddenly during an operation, Paul is devastated and cannot make out what has gone wrong in his life. None of his current crop of friends has any insight to offer. Some of these questions become clearer when his sister, with whom he is almost unnaturally close, comes to visit.
An alcoholic writer begins having visions apparently warning him of impending danger. After he delivers a lecture, he begins an affair with a woman from the audience. The visions intensify, however, and begin to threaten his relationship with the woman, since it may be her the visions are warning against.
