Ilja Roomans

Where Dragons Live

Following the death of their parents, Harriet and her siblings must unpack their childhood fears as they prepare to sell their dragon-filled Oxfordshire home. Between the clutter and the boxes, the siblings find themselves haunted by the memories of their late parents: a dragon-obsessed father and an exacting mother, and the esoteric collections of objects they left behind.

Teekay The Salto King

Rapper and breakdancer Teekay from Eindhoven is known for his somersaults and vlogs that are causing a stir. During the corona riots in 2021, he not only gained national fame as a vlog reporter, but also ended up briefly in jail. After his junior year, Teekay wants to change course and, above all, be an example for other young people. In the film he takes us into his life and talks about his childhood in foster homes, the mistakes he made and about his dreams. What is Teekay looking for?

5 Seasons of Revolution

Lina’s plan was simple. She wanted to become a camerawoman. She liked filming details of life and people around her, mainly during a bright sunny day in Damascus. But with the uprising in Syria, Lina was slowly absorbed into documenting the impact on people’s lives. It didn’t take long before events escalated, and arrests, torture, and potentially life-threatening situations became a reality for Lina to negotiate on a daily basis. She had to adapt. She invented personas and aliases. They each helped her navigate life under a new norm. What was a simple plan, turned into a complex web of identities, which seemed then a small price in exchange for her liberty to continue to hold the camera.

Close to Vermeer

In the year before he retires, Gregor Weber, a globally renowned Vermeer expert and flamboyant curator at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, works on his big dream: the largest Vermeer exhibition ever. Together with Weber, a number of enthusiasts and experts go in search of what truly makes a Vermeer a Vermeer.

Secret Friend

In 2019, the leakage of messages exchanged by authorities in Brazil undermines the credibility of Operation Lava Jato. A group of journalists follows the unfolding of the case, in a sequence of crises that puts Brazilian democracy at risk.

Master of Light

George Anthony Morton, a classical painter who spent ten years in federal prison, travels to his hometown to paint his family members. Going back forces George to face his past in his quest to rewrite the script of his life.

A Parked Life

A Parked Life is an intimate portrait of Petar Bonchev, one of the hundreds of thousands of Eastern European truck drivers who work in the west.

Turn Your Body to the Sun

The incredible life story of a Soviet soldier of Tatar descent who was captured by the Nazis during WWII. Today, his daughter Sana is tracing the path of her silent father, trying to understand what made him the man she knew as a child, through his diaries, as well as various personal and public archives and registries. As she accompanies Sana in her journey, filmmaker Aliona van der Horst excavates film archives, to find traces of those millions of Soviet soldiers who were caught in the crossfire of fighting between dictators, who were there but were easily left out of the narrative of the global war.

Crazy Days

The performing arts are hit hard by the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. The National Opera, too, faces a serious challenge: How can they make the enormous effort demanded of them by Le Nozze di Figaro worthwhile without having an audience? With two years of preparation time and performances that have long sold out, Mozart’s opera Le Nozze di Figaro is an ambitious international production by the National Opera. But when the opera house is forced to close due to COVID-19, everyone’s biggest fear becomes reality. What is an opera without an audience? What can they do to make sure all the hard work has not been for nothing? In the spirit of Le nozze di Figaro and in the style of the opera buffa (comic opera), Crazy Days demonstrates how important it is to create things of beauty, precisely in these insane pandemic times.

Jochem Myjer - Nog Eentje Dan

It was a year of extremes for Jochem Myjer: he performed in Carré one-hundred times but at the same time struggled with the tumors growing in his back. How did he keep himself going?

Hart van de democratie

This documentary was shot in 2018 and 2019 within the walls of the Haagse Binnenhof and examines how our democracy works and shows that it is under considerable pressure. The Binnenhof now looks different in the corona era. It has also become quieter there and people keep their distance, but the question whether and how our democracy will survive is just as important as before.

The Long River Slides

The Long River Slides is a musical ode to sadness. 'De Kift' frontman Ferry Heijne sets sail and meets people willing to share their stories with him. The poetic brass band punk provides comfort along the waterfront.

The Rainbow Warriors of Waiheke Island

In this politically charged documentary, survivors of the 1985 attack on the Greenpeace ship the &NFi;Rainbow Warrior&NFi_; recount the vessel's history and its key role in increasing public awareness of nuclear testing on Mururoa Atoll in the Pacific. What began as a "rusty old ship" became a symbol of Greenpeace's environmental activism -- and eventually attracted the attention of the French secret service.