Menno Boerema

A group of friends with Down Syndrome have been attending the same school for 40 years, and they are tired of being treated like children, they are grown-ups and want to live as such.

More than sixty years after leaving high school, former classmates Alicia, Gema, Angelica, Ximena and Maria Teresa are still devoted to their regular catch-ups in which they exchange gossip and reminiscences over elaborately presented afternoon teas. Impeccably turned out, the ladies’ free-wheeling tea-time chats run the gamut from mortality and marital infidelity to soccer and twerking.

Boi was originally aimed to relate the living conditions of individuals in countries where political and religion issues hamper everyday life. But Boi became the story of an inner struggle, a quest for who one really is. Boi is the story of a girl who wanted to be boy. Boi keeps tracks of Nitzan's life and body changes, following her through her journey all over the world. But most important it shows us the surprisingly beautiful direction uncertain steps can take. Nitzan unveils who she really is: an amazingly attractive and vigorous young man.

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?

A Flemish family comes together in their maternal home. Oscar, the grotesque patriarch, his bedridden wife Magda, his feeble son Johnny and his daughter Julia, who's married to a Moroccan soccer player. There's something wrong with Magda, who's not only plagued by her physical decay, but also by visions of her dead sister Marleen.

Different couples go to a hotel which has an special offer for staying over at the 31st of december 1999 in to the new millenium. The movie follows the different couples and their reasons to be in the hotel.

Tragic love story about the photographer and explorer Felice Beato who travelled back to Japan in 1895 to seek his former wife O-Kiku. On the way he describes in a nostalgic letter to his brother how much he yearns for his lost love O-Kiku and how impotent he feels in an ancient Japan subject to rapid change. The journey takes him to Nagasaki and Moji, Onomichi, Mount Fuji, Yokohama and Tokyo. Places he once visited with his beloved and where he now no longer understands the people. Felice...Felice... is inspired by hand-coloured nineteenth century photos taken by e.g. Felice Beato, Sjimooka Renjo and Baron von Stilfried. In this film, shot entirely in a studio, the photos depict Felice's journey. Awarded the Golden Calf for Best Feature film in 1998. (NFF)

The parents of five sisters have been married for forty years; the daughters have gathered in the family beach house to make a video for them. The encounter is marked by many confrontations as well as cheerful moments. Reminiscent of the sweet children's poems that mother recited are countered by Elsschot's Marriage: 'He thought: I'll kill her and set light to the house...' It also turns out that father had once disappeared for eighteen months, a 'secret' that the daughters have different ideas about. Brittle, an intimate film version of a play written and performed by the same actresses, is about rivalry in a family, the right to silence, but also about the need for solidarity. At the Netherlands Film Festival in 1997 the Golden Calf for Best Actress was awarded to the five actresses together.

1931: in Ireland, a film maker hears of an aged ship's carpenter who knows the fate of the Hollandia, a Norse ship that set sail in 1905 and vanished. The old salt has canisters of film to prove his tale. We see the footage as he narrates. They sail south in June, 1905, with scores of Siberian huskies aboard, meeting no living soul, the crew ignorant of the trip's purpose, until they reach Antarctica. A mysterious Italian paces the deck; a polar bear appears, and the Italian, possessed, hunts it down. That night, the boatswain explains to the crew how an Arctic bear could be at the South Pole and why the Hollandia has come. Visitors arrive, and the Gothic tale plays out.

Compilation of film clips from 1905-1915, found footage of silent movies and documentaries from the Jean Desmet Archive of the Netherlands Film Museum. Jean Desmet was one of the first Dutch film distributors. Lyrisch nitraat is a tribute to the craftsmanship of early filmmakers, but also shows the brittleness of old nitrate films. Composed as an opera about love and death, set to music by Bizet, Masek and Puccini.