Henk-Jelle de Groot

In a world where cities are becoming more important than countries, Rotterdam, Liverpool, Marseilles and Naples could form a 'cities gang'. All four are working class, multicultural and internationally oriented, and have been influenced significantly by urban planning and nineteenth-century and modernist urges to demolish. They share a clichéd sense of inferiority and often top 'the wrong charts'. They are currently undergoing an international re-evaluation, including ongoing processes of gentrification. Their shared characteristics could form the basis for a gang of cities capable of taking on the world. Or even showing the world how it could be done.

Within a dream, a man and woman find each other. But as the dream seems to turn into a nightmare, the couple risk losing their special connection.

In a historical vegetable garden on a Dutch estate, the 85 year-old pruning master and the gardener tend to the espaliers. As they prune, the men chat about food, the weather, the world and they share their knowledge of horticulture. Fifteen years they have spent working on the pear arbour. Will it finally close over this year?

In a society in which conscious lies and double morals are easily justified with excuses and laughs, a needlessly complex society is created, that deviates from the core of tangible life. Freek has a difficult time maintaining himself in his normal day life. When he looses his grip, he breaks and marks his most beloved person, his son, for life.

Spanish exchange student Lily is unable to settle down in the crowded city of Amsterdam. The mix tapes she records for herself drown out the sound of the city, yet her social isolation remains. When she finds out about a musician living in the same building, she reaches out.

After his wife's death, a vallenato singer from Majagual, Sucre, decides to quit music and return his allegedly cursed accordion to his master. He is joined by Fermín Morales, a teenage boy who admires him and wishes to follow his footsteps. Together, they start a journey throughout several towns in Northern Colombia to Taroa, in La Guajira desert, where the singer's master supposedly lives.