Witfilm

How do Europeans deal with their recent dark history (the wars, dictatorships and occupations)? What traces are etched?

Artistic director of the National Theater Eric de Vroedt writes and directs a performance about his own mother Winnie, who passed away in 2020. This piece, titled The Century of My Mother, is a family story about the migration from the Dutch East Indies to the Netherlands. It is De Vroedt's way of examining the relationship with his mother and not having to say goodbye to her yet: 'I can let her live on stage, but when the curtain falls, when the play is completely finished, then she is really dead'.

By exploring the relationship between the watched and the watching, our film uncovers the trauma and hope engendered by the Chinese all-surveilling state and lends a voice to those that stand in resilient defiance of such blatant abuse of power.

Shadow Game is an experimentally filmed account of the far-reaching consequences of European asylum policy. Now fences have gone up all over Europe, seeking asylum has become almost impossible. The teenagers cross snowy landscapes and meet aggressive border police on their way. Reaching their final destination has become more difficult than ever. Their journey takes them through the whole of Europe: from Greece to North Macedonia, Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, from Italy to France and The Netherlands. The film was shot over a period of three years, partly by the main characters themselves on their phones.

Vetri decided to find her fellow former child soldiers. They, like her, fought for the independence of the Tamil state in northern Sri Lanka. Talking together, they open up the traumas of war and reveal stories that were meant to be forgotten.

"Dance or Die" is a moving documentary about a young Syrian dancer who escapes the war and finds a new life in Holland. But the ghosts of the past won't let him go. With the war and the advance of the Islamic State in Syria, the young classical dancer Ahmad Joudeh lost everything – part of his family, his home, but also the right to practice his art. However, he will use dance as a weapon against Daesh. Three words adorn the neck of Ahmad Joudeh: Dance or Die. The tattoo is a declaration of war against IS if it takes him over. (Text: arte)

From backstage to the stage, from the magic of an opera to the depths of a documentary, Inside My Heart pushes the boundaries between the rehearsal process and the performance, at the heart of a troupe of professional actors with intellectual disabilities. A radically imaginative film that uses all possible cinematographic means to make the romances, conflicts and questionings of these actors palpable with lightness, literally sucking us in with them in a baroque drama with fairy-tale overtones. Through the themes of homosexuality, eroticism and the relationship to the body, Inside My Heart questions the way we look at things and what we might take for granted.

How do Dutch actors in the post-#MeToo era look back at intimate scenes and what do they think about the arrival of the intimacy coordinator? From her experience as an actress and filmmaker, Tamar van den Dop talks to several past and present icons.

Lieke, Marieke van der Winden's mother, was closed, insecure and fragile. After she died of cancer at the age of 48, Van der Winden was approached at the funeral by Lieke's foster brother. She learns that her grandfather and grandmother – of whom she has wonderful memories – were wrong in the Second World War. This fact, which had played an enormous role in Lieke's life, had been kept secret for decades. Only thirty years after that revelation Van der Winden dares to delve into her mother's history. In conversations with family and friends, she gains a whole new perspective on Lieke and on her own childhood. And when she searches the archives for her grandparents' activities during the war, the shocking revelations pile up – with major emotional consequences.

In the Bijlmer, in Amsterdam-Zuidoost, every culture has its own rituals around death. Funeral manager Anita has the task of attracting all those cultures to her soon to be built multicultural funeral home in the middle of the Bijlmer. Anita sets out on a tour to get to know this unfamiliar world. But the deeper she penetrates, the more she realises how little she knows about the Bijlmer’s different cultures.

A growing group of Dutch people in their twenties see the earth becoming less livable. They join the climate group Extinction Rebellion and campaign to fight the climate crisis. There is little they shy away from in their struggle: nightly campaigns, high-altitude actions, and even arrests or a criminal record. Everything for a better planet.

After twenty years, Wiam Al Zabari starts a conversation with his father. Why did they flee from Iraq? Why was that never discussed? Will he be able to let go of the past and embrace a Dutch future?

“When I told my mother a boy was hitting me on the playground, she said: ‘That’s because he likes you.’” So begins this exposé about femicide, with the sentence appearing in black letters on a bright red background. The film shows three women who survived abusive relationships—by becoming murderers themselves. Laura from Finland, Rachel from the Netherlands and Rosalba from Italy explain how and, more importantly, why they killed their partners. One speaks eloquently, another haltingly, but all three are candid.

During an intense emotional crisis towards the end of his life, Vincent van Gogh spent one year in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, a mental institution that exists to this day. The female patients who stay there now mostly spend their days painting, like Van Gogh used to. Here, Van Gogh painted many of his famous works and wrote numerous letters. In this exploratory documentary, the present-day patients write a letter back to him. Where and in what ways do they find comfort?

A film about the feeling of immortality of a group of young friends who lost one of their best friends. During a short trip, they seem to party unrestrained. But how does the harsh confrontation with death resonate in their lives?

The living room of a couple in Limburg is full of statues of saints, crying over all the bad news filing past on their television screens. But while nobody believes them, the two self-proclaimed 'little prophets’ are preparing for the imminent time when their rented house will become an international place of pilgrimage, including a healing spring.

The 14-year-old Malak, Celia, and Jae travel with their parents to southern France for a summer without school, homework or daily duties. At the campsite, they can be who they want to be and do whatever they want. One looks for the company of her peers, the other withdraws into the online world with her smartphone and the third stays permanently in touch with her boyfriend. Intimate, dreamy, and recognizable documentary about infatuation, insecurity, and that complex period between childhood and adulthood

Four boys involved in ‘Ndrangheta Mafia activities are taken away from their extremely powerful and violent families in an attempt to re-educate them.In the most violent region of Italy, a brave judge fights against the prevailing ‘Ndrangheta Mafia by removing young boys from their extremely powerful and violent families. Director Sophia Luvarà, who grew up in Calabria herself, had unlimited access to the work of the judge and the life of the boys during the controversial re-education program he set up. Through him and his team we meet some of the sons of the most dangerous men in Italy. Can their destiny be altered?