Jan Wouter van Reijen

When you look at a river, what do you see? Remembering Holland by Jan Wouter van Reijen carries the viewer through the basin of the River Waal, past painters, sculptors and poets. Van Reijen follows the entire course of the river, from the German border to the North Sea, and creates portraits of various artists who have taken the riverine landscape as their theme. Each and every one of them sings the river’s praises in his or her own way, from extremely realistic to abstract. At every spot along the way, and each day anew, the river landscape changes: we see the water dark and colorful, glistening in late and early light, in morning dew and by moonlight, in clouds of mist and the snows of winter. Yet the water brings more than beauty alone. The flooding of the forelands and the reinforcement of the dykes in 1995 remind us of the eternal struggle of the Dutch against the rising water. See it and be borne along on a voyage of the imagination.

Impressionistic, nightmarish images of a traveller in the Danube delta who looks for 'the man in the house behind the swamp' from the story of the same name by Dutch author A. Alberts. When he moors at an island with a house on it that used to be the executed dictator Ceausescu's country cottage, reality and imagination converge at this remarkable place. The occupant is disturbed by the unwanted guest. When it gets dark, he disappears into the house. He is watched through the slightly open door. In the end, he sits down to dinner and it turns out the table has been set for three. The invisible third person is the host's imaginary lover. Loneliness and booze prevail. When the traveller's delirium is at its height, the swamp becomes the dominant factor.

During the International Film Festival Rotterdam in 2002, Leo Hannewijk (festival director Film by the Sea) approached filmmaker and producer Digna Sinke with the idea of asking several film makers to make short films based on poems about the province of Zeeland. It would offer an opportunity to investigate the limits of the medium film and, just like poetry, not to focus on the story but to tackle universal and grander themes through mood and form. In the end, eight short films were realized, by eight different filmmakers. The films are connected by intermezzi, aerial shots of the Zeeland coasts. Poems of the Sea is a stirring and surprising portrayal of Zeeland. Filled with desires and passion.

The importance of the Atelier as a meeting and working-place for independent or beginning filmmakers is highlighted in Last days of Studio Frans van de Staak a necrology of his films by Kees Hin (2002), which focuses mainly on Van de Staak's non-naturalistic style of directing actors.

Documentary on Rotterdam artist Co Westerik, who died in September 2018. In this film, Jan Wouter van Reijen explicitly rejects the traditional form of the artist portrait. Instead he searches for a different, creative way of illuminating the motivations, themes and emotions underlying Westerik’s paintings.

A Dutch couple is confronted with the husband's rapid onset of senility during a snowy winter in North Eastern Canada.

Two very different friends who share an apartment in Amsterdam have reached a dead end in their lives. The arrival of a parcel looks like an opportunity for a change.

Residents of the same street in Haarlem, and acquaintances and relatives of Kees Hin, together tell the story of Little Red Riding Hood, each in fifteen words.