Frank van den Engel

Even lucht

Man is busy, busy, busy. Until we lie down flat on our backs for a while, in the dunes, in a farmyard, beside a fire engine, in the park or on the banks of a canal. Watching the bank of clouds drifting by or the planes forming persisting contrails in the sky, daydreams, outpourings and contemplations inevitably bubble up. With the sky as a mirror for prostrate man and with the lying man as a mirror for the viewer, this documentary draws a loving portrait of human beings briefly making contact with themselves.

Eddy's War

For four seasons, lone wolf Eddy van Wessel travels along the Ukrainian front lines. Now that the Netherlands' most awarded war photographer is in the twilight of his successful career, he wants to take the ultimate photo one more time, the image that summarizes the entire conflict and that makes all the struggles, traumas and setbacks he has endured worthwhile.

White Balls on Walls

The slogan “Meet the icons of modern art” needs to be scraped off the glass wall of the Stedelijk, Amsterdam’s modern art museum. Because precisely who the icons of modern art are is very much the question. Who gets to decide? And who loses out? In 2019, as director Sarah Vos started shooting her documentary, more than 90 percent of art at the Stedelijk was made by white men. That’s got to change, the museum’s director Rein Wolfs believes. But this is easier said than done—so much becomes clear when Vos follows Wolfs and his team as they strive for greater diversity in the collection, as well as among their staff.

Mijn grote broer

A family must come to grips with the suicide of their eldest son. What drove the outwardly relaxed and happy Arie to his deed? For two years we follow his younger brother Gijs, mother Denise and father Arjan while they try to turn despair into meaning.

Lazy Duck

What would happen with you if only you know the truth, and people won’t believe you? If the government decides to prosecute you and you have to plea for your own innocence without having the evidence? Peter Putker’s wife Durdana lost her life while sailing along the coast of Colombia. And although Peter states from the very beginning that they were attacked by pirates, the local authorities do not buy in his innocence. For them, he is the one who murdered his own wife. Problem is: only Peter himself was there and truly knows what happens. The Colombian authorities assign the case to the Dutch court. What happens when only you know the truth and any evidence supporting your innocence is lacking?

De Gert en Hermien Story

The Gert & Hermien Story shows the rise and fall of one of the most popular singing duos in Dutch history: Gert & Hermien Timmerman. Their career has seen great heights and deep valleys. Their personal lives, which were marked by scandals, were always widely covered in the tabloids. Daughter Sandra, along with some other intimates and confidants of Gert and Hermien, is our guide in the unlikely story of her narcissistic, manipulative father and driven mother.

Piet is Gone

Piet is gone tells the story of Piet Beentjes, who went missing on the isle of Texel in 1987. For 30 years, Toos Beentjes has desperately tried to uncover the truth behind the mysterious disappearance of her homosexual brother. In vain. The police saw no reason to investigate the case: 'Eventually, he’ll wash up. And if not, the tourists will find him.' The film is not a quest for Piet Beentjes, but tells the story of what happened before and after the disappearance. About the Kafkaesque world Toos entered after her brother disappeared. A world of routine, lackadaisical interest and a lame police investigation.

Love Is Potatoes

One day, Dutch film maker van der Horst was given her inheritance: 6 square meters, one sixth of a small, wooden house in the Russian countryside where her mother grew up. It was as if life had handed her a card she felt forced to play. She began a journey into the past, back into the childhood of her Russian mother and her five sisters, all of whom struggled with fear, famine and war in Stalin’s Russia; experiences that left them scarred to their very soul. Aliona’s quest into the lives and fate of her family becomes a loving, poignant, and poetic film with Chekhovian characters. Accompanied by the magical animation of acclaimed Italian artist Simone Massi, unimaginable events in the Soviet past are given an immediate charge. Along with the stories of ordinary people living in the small farmhouse, the film maker tells the tale of Soviet terror, immense bravery and a fear that has never left those four walls.

Here I Am

A top executive who can't bear to regard himself as a loser, even after nearly dying in the New York marathon; a woman unable to cope with the loss of her wealthy status after her divorce; and an ambitious financial couple confronted with their unresolved family matters. Every Sunday, in their upper class Bloemendaal church, the cutting sermons of reverend Ad van Nieuwpoort shake their faith and existence to the core. What drives people to be crushed by the weight of their ambitions?

Stranger in Paradise

A political essay on the absurd dilemmas presented by asylum policies. In a classroom, migrants’ illusions are dashed against the rocks of European arrogance.

0.8 Amps of Happiness

The documentary closely portrays three patients who are being treated with Electro Convulsion Therapy (ECT) for their depression or psychosis.

Ben Ali Libi, Magician

A heartfelt search for Ben Ali Libi, the main character in an iconic poem of the late Dutch poet Willem Wilmink.

Kill Your Darling

In 1990, the beheaded body of a young woman was found in a Rotterdam canal. The body remained unidentified until 2008, when new DNA techniques revealed that the victim was the American model Melissa Halstead. A joint investigation by the Rotterdam cold case unit and their colleagues in the United Kingdom led to John Sweeney. Sweeney is known to have a tumultuous relationship with Halstead – as evidenced by the many lurid drawings he made during their time together in Amsterdam.

Sweet Smoke of the Fatherland

This film is a triptych with three stories, involving three characters. They live in different parts of Europe: Western Europe -Catalonia (Spain); Eastern Europe -Lithuania; and in the new Europe -Georgia (Akhazia). They have experienced, in different parts of the 20Th century, civil wars and dictatorships. They share the same fate: they stayed where they were born. This film is about people who decide to do nothing in times of war, oppression and occupation. They choose a life amidst the ruins of their past. Even when this choice leads to loneliness: living a dream, not a reality. Alone, between the graves of their loved ones, they spend their last days. They have frozen their lives by protecting themselves from the outside world.

Water Children

As a film about fertility, Water Children is an ode to womanhood and the body Filmmaker Aliona van der Horst followed the trail of the unconventional Dutch-Japanese pianist and artist Tomoko Mukaiyama who made a huge work of art on the theme of womanhood and fertility. She created a cathedral-like space out of twelve thousand white silk dresses in which visitors, as in a ritual, roamed around and fell silent. And where people confessed intimate details about children who were or were not born, about sexuality and life-choices. This resulted in a majestic epic about motherhood, miscarriages and menopause. In a visual and poetic way, the film penetrates into what is probably still one of the greatest of taboos, menstruation, and, as a consequence, touches upon universal themes around life and death.

Leaving Mandela Park

Five lively kids use art to escape from the Mandela Park township in Cape Town, South Africa.

Boris Ryzhy

Russian Poet Boris Ryzhy was handsome, talented and famous. So why did he end his own life at the age of 26? A quest to find the answer takes the filmmaker to the notorious neighbourhood in the cold industrial city of Yekaterinenburg where Boris grew up...

That's Life

Five to ten years ago, photographer and filmmaker Sander Veeneman portrayed three children in Mozambique, South Africa and Peru. They should now have grown into young adults. What have they developed into? Have they managed to build up a future for themselves and their family? And what are their dreams for the future? He visits them with a film camera and sometimes as the only data their name and age. Especially the girl from Mozambique is hard to trace. After looking here and there, he finds a young woman, but is she the girl in the photograph? The boy from Peru is not doing so well. His Indian tribe is severely struck by TBC and hepatitis. In South Africa, Veeneman finds out that 'his' boy has become a lively lad who loves sport. The road movie documentary shows what their everyday lives look like today, the primary perspective being these people's inner strength and not so much the poverty that surrounds them.

De verloren kolonie

The oldest primate laboratory in the world, located in the enchanting former Soviet republic of Abkhazia, was virtually destroyed during its struggle for independence from Georgia. But the lab workers refuse to give up their lab and have come up with a new idea to restore it to its former pride and glory. With the help of their renowned former director Professor Lapin they hope to put their institute back on the map. The Lost Colony follows their efforts, made with boundless confidence and unwavering hope, against all odds.

Lipari

On the idyllic island of Lipari near Sicily a few traditional swordfish hunters are still active. The days are over where these fishermen were self-evidently succeeded by their sons. On board Nino’s ship, the reigning peace is not what it appears to be. The twelve-man crew that mans the small boat is in complete concentration. They peer at the water surface, looking for their prey. While the diesel engine stamps monotonously, the hours pass and we wait patiently. Then an excited noise erupts from the crow’s nest: a swordfish couple has been spotted! Lipari pays homage to an almost extinct profession.

Voices of Bam

Two Dutch filmmakers travel to the Iranian city of Bam to chronicle the aftermath of a December 2006 earthquake that claimed 43,000 lives and left 60,000 homeless. Survivors reflect on the catastrophe in voice-over narration that's accompanied by images of a wrecked metropolis fighting to pull itself back together. The gripping documentary received its North American premiere at the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival.

Alias Kurban Saïd

The mystery of the author of the 1937 cult novel Ali and Nino - a recently-rediscovered Romeo and Juliet of the Caucasus - is explored in Alias Kurban Saïd. Renowned Dutch documaker Jos de Putter travels from Azerbaijan to Austria to the U.S., chasing down who wrote the book under the pseudonym Kurban Saïd.

The Damned and the Sacred

Portrait of a traditional youth dance group from Grozny, Chechnya, on tour in Europe. Images of daily life in ruined Grozny combined with poetic visuals of performances. The art of survival.

André Hazes, Zij Gelooft in Mij

Portrait of the popular Dutch singer André Hazes.