IJswater Films BV

Sam wakes up, gets ready and goes to do his daily job. And then the unexpected happens. A bomb explodes in the center of the shopping mall where he works. He drags himself towards the entrance to save the victims. One by one he pulls them out, until something terrible takes place. In complete hysteria he runs off till he falls down from exhaustion. A woman's voice makes him raise his head. She's one of the victims he saved. She wants to know why the suicide bomber did it. This encounter projects him back in history and even in a surreal world. Thereafter he runs into everyone he saved and feels that their defeat shows many parallels with his own. Even his confrontation with the wrongdoer isn't that straightforward as he thought it would be and confronts him with the fact that guilt and innocence can be pretty much alike.

A young boy and his young sister are playing on a rubbish dump, acting out their parents' divorce. For this they use their father's things which their mother brought to the dumping ground out of anger. The girl only wants to use their fathers things, but the boy finds something that he finds much more interesting.

Iris and Kimberly, two close friends from Brabant, share a passion: synchronised swimming. They have been a duo for so long that their whole lives seem to run synchronously. When the day of the big event dawns, both their talent and their friendship are put to the test. Are they both motivated enough to maintain perfection? Is their friendship really as harmonious as they think?

The Spanish family Gabarre-Mendoza is celebrating a birthday, when it is interrupted by a police inspection. In ‘La Cañada Real’, a shanty town just outside Madrid, the inhabitants are forced to leave their illegal homes. Each member of the family struggles in their own way with their unstable position.

Holiday bus driver Mario has spent his entire life shuttling old age pensioners to the sunny south with his own travel company 'Paradise Trips'. Today, on the verge of his own retirement, Mario has to bring a motley crew of alternative partygoers to a psychedelic festival in Croatia. The journey soon turns into a fascinating trip that confronts Mario with his own prejudices and his long-lost son.

Drama on the dawning love between a Polish woman and a farmer. Anna is forced to work in a brothel, but manages to escape. She's found, exhausted and scared, by Henk (the farmer) who offers her a place to stay, but her past chases her.

A story about the 14 year old Heleen who makes the transition of child to adult with pain and effort in the wild 70s. While her parents going to divorce she is exploring the world of sex, drugs and love on her own.

A mosaic film about a group of people in the city of Rotterdam, The Netherlands strugging with loneliness, hope and love.

Short film based on a short story by Jaap Scholten, in which a pregnancy does not last for nine months, but nine hours. A man and a woman meet each other at a party and decide to proceed to conceive a child. In the nine hours that follow, they pass through all stages of pregnancy, up to and including the childbirth.

Pauze ('Personnel Rooms') is about people at work, not about their work. By letting the viewer peep into the world of personnel rooms, a place where private moments are shared with random people, the viewer is allowed to eavesdrop on their conversations in a voyeuristic manner.

One evening, a blind woman comes out of her car with a tear-stained face. In a flashback, we see the preceding events. She sits on a swing and falls for a man's voice who asks her for directions. But she does not want to touch his face. As a girl, she could fantasise about her face, until she touched it. Now, she fears the same with the man.

A young father and mother meet each other by their little son’s hospital bed. From their terse sentences, but especially from their mutual discomfort, you can tell they are divorced and rarely talk to each other. Because their son has to stay overnight for observation, the parents are forced to spend the night together. This also forces the viewer to observe how much is left of their relationship.

Mirte is a cleaner in the reception centre for asylum seekers at the airport. She tries to forget her past through routine. When the charismatic West African Luc is brought in, Mirte seems to get a grip on her life again. A film about loss, fleeing and love from an unexpected corner.

At his sunnet, his circumcision party, 7 year old Turkish boy Cihan, finds out that becoming a real man takes more of him, then just being circumcised.

Marc-Antoine and Mickael are staying every winter behind on a by tourists abandoned island. Like their friends they are also full of plans to leave for the mainland, but is Marc-Antoine able to escape his solidified routine?

To show the many lovers of his mother how he feels about them, a young boy buries the gifts he gets from them in the woods. But then one of them gives him a dog, called Dajo.

When a successful young artist named Benjamin is involuntarily committed, he is completely baffled, for he doesn’t remember anything about what happened. Life in the psychiatric institute is violent and absurd, but step by step, Benjamin seems to come to grips with himself again. He starts to realize how narcissistic he used to be. When he is released and meets up with his old friends, he is confronted with yet another truth.

A skeptical Vatican priest travels to the southern Dutch province of Limburg to investigate a reported miracle, only to get entangled in a series of apparently miraculous events that undermine his vocation.

Nine-year-old Daan is really excited about taking up swimming when he discovers his mother's old swimming medals in the attic. When his school teacher encourages him to join the nearest local swimming club, Daan finds out that his mother is definitely not amused. She is afraid that Daan inherited her cardiac problems. Despite his mothers fears, Daan doesn't wait and starts training behind her back.

When Sarah looks out of her window she sees several situations between couples take place. It is like she is watching her own life and all the choices that could change it. In the end she can take a decision about her own life by looking at others. The couples tell a story about a world in which you can loose the direction of your life just like that. And find it again.