FICTION

By the creators of ANNE+

In gritty 1980s Amsterdam, opposites Rita and Cora set up The Muffler (De Knalpot), a car workshop run by and for women, in a squat. Over a period of five years, the workshop grows into an importante base and a close-knit community of free-spirited (lesbian) women. When the municipality threatens to close the workshop, the women must join forces to save their beloved spot – and with it, their independence.

Director: Valerie Bisscheroux
Screenplay: Maud Wiemeijer
Co-creator: Hanna van Vliet
Fund: Netherlands Film Fund
Length: 90 minutes
Expected release date: TBD
Status: in development

DOCUMENTARY

With the recent escalation of Russia’s war on Ukraine, the seemingly unbreakable bond of a vibrant cheerleading team of 50+ year old women called “Nice Ladies” is challenged. They face impossible choices between motherland and grandmotherhood, between staying and leaving. Core team member Sveta flees with her family to the Netherlands, while captain Valia and coach Nadia stay behind in the repeatedly bombed city of Kharkiv. Torn apart, the ladies try to keep contact to hold on to their sanity amid terror, heartbreak, and the plague of Sveta’s survivor’s guilt. Will the team be able to reunite, save their sisterhood, and find a common language through the emerging scars of war?

Director: Mariia Ponomarova
Co-production: TABOR production, HUMAN, MDR
Fund: Netherlands Film Fund, Amarte Foundation, European Solidarity Fund for Ukrainian Films
International sales: CAT&Docs
Distribution: Cinema Delicatessen
Length: 90 / 52 minutes
Expected release date: 2024
Status: in post-production

Selected for the Ex Oriente Film training program, DOK Leipzig Co-Pro Market and the dok.incubator workshop 2023.

FICTION

Turkish-Dutch girl Yildiz searches in faith for a reason for herself and her manic-destructive mother to continue living. In her search for the right to exist, she flees into her fantasy.

Director: Ayla Çekin Satijn
Screenplay: Ayla Çekin Satijn
Fund: Netherlands Film Fund, Limburg Film Fund, Kattendijke/Drucker Foundation, CineSud, Stichting Brand Cultuurfonds
Length: 15 minutes
Expected release date: 2024
Status: in post-production

FICTION

When Lot goes blind in an accident, her world comes to an abrupt halt. Her plans to travel, study, dive and live together with her boyfriend Casper seem to fall apart. Lot fiercely resists her new helplessness and tries to escape her painful reality by dreaming as much as possible. In her dreams, she is free and can see again. Only when she accepts her new reality does she begin to get a grip on her life again.

Director: Mercedes Stalenhoef
Screenplay: Britt Snel & Mercedes Stalenhoef
Co-production: NTR
Fund: Netherlands Film Fund, CoBO Fund, NPO-fund
Distribution: September Film
Length: 95 minutes
Expected release date: 2024
Status: in post-production

DOCUMENTARY

In their new car, bought in Belgium, Angie (33) and her father Mansour (73) undertake the same journey he made 42 years ago from Brussels to Beirut. Yet the route is no longer the same, nor is their relationship.

Director: Angie Obeid
Co-production: Savage Film
Fund: VAF, Netherlands Film Fund, Al Jazeera, The Arab Fund for Arts and Culture, Doha Film Institute, Creative Europe
Distribution: Cinema Delicatessen
Length: 75 minutes
Expected release date: TBD
Status: in post-production

FICTION

In a desperate attempt to end his looming affair with the beautiful Ulla, advertising man Guy Nilissen agrees to swallow a pill she offers him to forget all about her. Only to wake up the next morning, thrown out of a car, in front of a luxurious villa, not remembering who he is anymore. Plagued by strange hallucinations and trying to recover his memory, he finds himself living there with ballet dancer Krissy and their daughter. After inadvertently winning a pitch at the agency for a mysterious digital black cube, his life gets even more complicated: he faces blackmail, disturbing messages and invasive threats from a newcomer at the office: Teo. Guy’s life crumbles when his wife is sent explicit images of himself with an unknown woman, leading him on a desperate quest to uncover the truth about his love-life and stop Teo’s relentless pursuit to take over his life.

Imposter is a gripping neo-noir where reality and paranoia blend, and victims and manipulators trade places in a cat-and-mouse play

Director: Michiel van Jaarsveld
Screenplay: Michiel van Jaarsveld
Fund: Netherlands Film Fund
Length: 100 minutes
Expected release date: TBD
Status: in development

Developed  through  the  EAVE  Programme,  a  training  initiative  of  the  Creative  Europe  – MEDIA sub-programme of the European Union.

DOCUMENTARY

In Short Dick Man, Matthijs explores why he has been haunted by insecurities about the size of his penis all his life. In his journey, he highlights one of the biggest taboos surrounding the modern man. A film about the struggle for self-acceptance and liberation from the suffocating frameworks of masculinity and sexuality.

Directors: Willem Timmers & Matthijs Janssen
Co-production: BNNVARA
Fund: CoBO Fund
Length: 50 minutes
Expected release date: TBD
Status: in production

DOCUMENTARY

A film about a priest who wants to conquer his “inner sniper”.

Director and screenplay: Nataliya Golofastova
Co-production: Multimediale Stichting Aard
Fund: Netherlands Film Fund, Amsterdam Fund for the Arts, Amarte Fund, Kattendijke/Drucker Foundation, Wilhelmina E. Jansen Fund
Length: 80 minutes
Expected release date: TBD
Status: in post-production

DOCUMENTARY

Queens of their own South African desert, a queer performance ensemble go on a road trip to help shine a light on the extreme violence suffered by their LGBTI community.

Director: Andrew Brukman
Co-production: Spier Films, Caspian Films
Distribution: Gusto Entertainment
Length: 90 minutes
Expected release date: TBD
Status: in development

FICTION

Betty’s (71) life turns upside down when she receives a totally unexpected visit from Carlos, the fifty-five-year-old son she was forced to give up when she was a teenage mother. In her desperate attempts to spare him and all her other loved ones, she soon becomes hopelessly entangled in her self-spun web of well-meaning lies.

Director: Nicole van Kilsdonk
Screenplay: Peer Wittenbols
Fund: Netherlands Film Fund
Length: 90 minutes
Expected release date: TBD
Status: in development

FICTION

In the summer of 1998, adopted Kyu (11) is taken on a road trip to Marseille by his father Lenny (50) to attend the World Cup soccer match Netherlands – South Korea. While Kyu realises that this will be the last trip he will make with his terminally ill father, he is confronted with his South Korean roots.

Director and screenplay: Yim Brakel
Fund: Netherlands Film Fund
Length: 90 minutes
Expected release date: TBD
Status: in development