Tijn Docter
2 November 2004, shortly before nine in the morning. In The Hague, the report comes in that in Amsterdam Theo van Gogh has been murdered. All warning bells start ringing. With the country in flames, sometimes literally, politicians and officials in The Hague have to neutralise all sorts of known and unknown stings, and just when Van Gogh’s cremation seems to herald a period of relative peace, a second explosion follows: the attack on the Hofstad Network in the Laakkwartier in The Hague. A reconstruction of nine days of political high tension and flying dust, a decade after the assassination of the trendsetting filmmaker and TV presenter.
Casper (Gijs Blom) has never met his father and lives alone with his mother Marit (Birgit Schuurman). He likes to spend his free time playing the piano, so he is thrilled when he is chosen to become a pianist in a youth orchestra – and especially when he makes friends with Anouk (Susan Radder). She knows what Casper is going through when he learns that his mother is seriously ill: Marit has cancer. Scared of what might happen to her, Casper and his best friend Pim (Massimo Pesik) decide to find his father…
After a night out with friends, a couple misses the subway home by a whisker. Another man misses his train. While the couple talks things over on the platform, two lanky kids come down the stairs, clearly looking for trouble. When they start badgering the solitary man, the couple looks on anxiously and impotently. Even when the threats take on a violent nature, they do not have the courage to intervene.
In the near future, a man wants to pick up his daughter from school. From the doorkeeper onwards, he is asked about his date of birth, his job, the situation at home. 'Regulations, sir. We can't just let anybody in.' In the strange office block, he is sent from one staff member to the next; all answers are entered on a touch screen. The man reacts with growing irritation - he only wants to collect his kid.
The two brothers Van der Laan, of strict religion, have been running Holland's most successful software company for 10 years when suddenly their financial manager leaves the firm. The lives of the brothers and their families get turned upside down when they hire a young hot shot financial specialist, in order to pursue their goal to bring the company to the NASDAQ.
Rising, rather autobiographical novelist Giph has a hot girlfriend, doctor and model Samarinde. His crude, domineering and progressive mother Ria's suffering an incurable decease in which she suffers from paraplegia. Her inevitably ensuing death is brought forward with euthanasia. Giph is struggling to handle the situation with his mother. Shortly after his mother has passed he away, he decides to join his fun loving friends on La Palma for a holiday. There Samarinde tells her boyfriend she's expecting his baby
A story of friendship, love, crime and death. Against the backdrop of a large criminal investigation the lives of various characters involved get entangled. Meanwhile a vulture floats in the sky over the city, observing and being watched.
