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A Quiet Fight: Belgium’s Oscar Entry ‘Julie Keeps Quiet’ Explores the Inner Battle of a Tennis Prodigy
5 November 2024
Julie Keeps Quiet is a powerful character study about a young tennis player navigating the fallout from a coach's scandal. Leonardo Van Dijl’s debut feature film uses minimal dialogue to explore themes of loyalty, power, and inner conflict. Instead of drama, Van Dijl chooses to focus on the appare
In The Uncomfortable Documentary ‘White Balls On Walls’, The Stedelijk Museum Looks In The Mirror
19 January 2024
In White Balls on Walls Sarah Vos follows how under new directorship, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam is wrestling with a more diverse and inclusive trajectory for its collections and staff. ‘The national character often reveals itself subconsciously in meetings’, says Vos about her deliciousl
Holocaust Past Meets Modern Amsterdam in Steve McQueen Documentary ‘Occupied City’
6 December 2023
12 Years a Slave director Steve McQueen takes us on an amazing, meditative journey through Amsterdam in Occupied City. His documentary shows how the Second World War has shaped the contemporary face of the Dutch capital.
The Belgian Films That Captivated Cannes
15 May 2023
It wasn’t just that the films Close, The Eight Mountains and Tori and Lokita all received awards at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival. All three of them are also humane, authentic films about friendship, which try to speak the unspeakable through images.
How Filmmakers Lose Themselves in the Gaze of Vermeer’s Elusive Girls
22 February 2023
The Oscar-nominated Girl with a Pearl Earring, the breakthrough film of a very young Isabelle Huppert and even a legendary, never-finished feature film by Salvador Dalí - many a filmmaker has been inspired by Vermeer's work. A story about the impossible love between master and maid.
Painfully Funny. Humour in the Films by Paul Verhoeven and Alex Van Warmerdam
7 September 2022
Paul Verhoeven and Alex van Warmerdam, the masters of Dutch cinema, use humour at the cutting edge. Their most recent films prove this: Benedetta and Nr. 10. Whereas Verhoeven often uses satire and hyperbole, Van Warmerdam is the king of absurdism and understatement.
A House as a Second Skin. The Documentary ‘Housewitz’ by Oeke Hoogendijk
4 July 2022
Oeke Hoogendijk’s Housewitz is a documentary portrait of her mother whose phobias have kept her from setting foot outside her house for about three decades. Her cluttered upstairs rooms are full of "unprocessed junk." A film about a house as a second skin: about security, being trapped and travell
When Taking Your Time Takes a Long Time. The Documentary ‘100UP’ by Heddy Honigmann
6 July 2021
What is it that makes people get out of bed day in, day out for over a century? This is the question documentary filmmaker Heddy Honigmann asks seven quirky centenarians in her new film 100UP.
The Terror of the Smile. Loneliness in Film
26 November 2020
The coronavirus pandemic makes this more obvious than ever: despite our constant connection via all kinds of screens, loneliness appears to be a growing problem. How do you discuss this problem? Does it help to give a face to loneliness? In what way? These questions are addressed in the interdiscipl
Oeke Hoogendijk Has Made a True Art-Thriller With My Rembrandt
13 May 2020
In My Rembrandt, documentary filmmaker Oeke Hoogendijk portrays the owners of a painting by the Dutch Old Master. She orchestrates their story into a thrilling detective about the hunt for an unknown Rembrandt. But the most beautiful part is that Hoogendijk also focuses on the absurdity of this stor
Village Idiot and Troubled Genius, the Many Faces of Vincent Van Gogh in Cinema
27 March 2020
At Eternity’s Gate, the most recent biopic about Vincent van Gogh, confirms the myth of the troubled artist who continues to fascinate both filmmakers and audience. However, in other films, the painter is portrayed as a village idiot or an artistic hero. Will the real Van Gogh please stand up?
Searching for the Cuckoo: This Magnificent Cake! – a Stop-motion Film about Belgium’s Colonial Past
16 September 2019
Realism, surrealism and the absurd compete for priority in the Emma De Swaef’s and Marc James Roels’ stop–motion film This Magnificent Cake! In their third stop-motion film this duo show the consequences of Belgium’s often inept colonialism in Congo, and at the same time, sharpen the spectat