Katja Draaijer

Banzo

1907. Afonso, a doctor, arrives at Principe Island to cure servants from a cocoa plantation “infected” with Banzo, nostalgia of the slaves, who are dying from starvation and suicide. The group is confined to the forest, where Afonso decides to heal them by trying to understand what is affecting their soul. Will he manage to save them?

Mothers

Four mothers explain how their sons ended up in trouble with the law because they fell in with the wrong crowd, experienced trauma or were intimidated by a gang. The offenses are minor, and their involvement was not always proven—sometimes they were only witnesses to a crime. But once Amsterdam’s Top400 crime prevention program has them in its sights, things just get worse for them.

The Gold Machine

Inspired by the writings of Iain Sinclair, a father and daughter trace the footsteps of their colonialist ancestor to the Peruvian jungle. Their journeys flip between continents and centuries to produce an original mediation – part documentary, part fiction – on fate, family and the search for Eldorado.

Along the Way

On the border of Turkey and Iran, 19-year-old twin sisters Zahra and Fatimah from Afghanistan lose their family. To survive in a hostile world of smugglers and drug dealers, they face choices and dilemmas that severely test their symbiotic relationship and conscience.

The Quest for Tonewood

Gaspar, a luthier, wants to make a violin from the wood of a tree so rare that it may or may not exist anymore.

Mitra

“37 years after her daughter Mitra was executed in Iran and she fled her home country, Haleh leads a successful life as a renowned academic in the Netherlands. Her peaceful existence is shaken by the arrival of a woman she believes may be the traitor responsible for Mitra’s death.”

Window Boy Would Also Like to Have a Submarine

Aboard a cruise ship out at sea, a young sailor discovers a door mysteriously leading to an apartment in Montevideo. Meanwhile, a group of Asian farmers find an abandoned shed in the valley, attributing it supernatural powers.

Gold

Promising young gymnast Timo and his disabled father Ward share a big dream, to win Olympic gold. But when Timo meets physiotherapist Irene, these new and intense feelings conflict with Timo's dedication to his father and the Olympic 'mission'.

Western Arabs

A historical and personal story, based on the director's own experience, family, friends and acquaintances. We follow them and depict different situations throughout their lives - the sad, the vile, the emotional and the comical. A universal story of a family that has arisen from a simultaneously beautiful and tragic cultural encounter; as is the case in hundreds of thousands of families around Europe and the rest of the Western World.

By the Name of Tania

The Amazon flows lazily through the goldmine-gashed landscape of northern Peru. Using real eyewitness accounts, directors Bénédicte Liénard and Mary Jiménez tell the story of a young woman who winds up in the clutches of forced prostitution when her initially hopeful attempt to escape the constrictions of her village goes wrong. Step by step, she is robbed of her moral and physical integrity. The film reconstitutes a space of dignity and returns voice and identity to a fate formally made nameless. With its powerful imagery, the girl’s traumatic odyssey embodies the destruction of life in a capitalist world in connection with horrific natural devastation.

Ubiquity

Three "electro sensitives" who endure electro-hypersensitivity in Japan, Sweden and the Netherlands share their experiences evading connectivity.

Brothers

When Alexander suddenly leaves on a road trip to France, Lukas decides to join him as he’s been trailing his charismatic brother for his entire life. But during this journey he discovers that he finally has to go his own way, not knowing this decision would be so all-encompassing.

Grand Tour

Full of expectation, a 16 year old girl secretly travels from the city to a deserted, wintry island to visit her first great love. He is an elderly bartender at a beach tent, engaged, big, tough and strong. With his huge hands around her head and shoulders, she seems even younger than she is. But she feels loved and mature. But a morning of disenchantment awaits her.

Thanatos

When Thanatos meets a lonely birdwatcher, a special friendship ensues. But he knows in advance that a farewell will be inevitable.

Those Who Feel the Fire Burning

As a group of refugees tries to enter Europe illegally by boat, a storm suddenly appears and all hell breaks loose when an old man falls overboard. His perception shifts into another dimension: a dark, hallucinatory place. Driven by a mysterious power and desperately in search of his loved ones, his soul passes by the everyday reality of many castaway refugees at the border of the alleged paradise, Europe. The old man's spirit observes people on the street being chased away like dogs, follows an illegal worker and a drug-addicted mother and slips inside crowded refugee shelters. Wandering through this limbo, the old man questions the meaning of his existence.

Ketamine

Two brothers linger in the little village where they have just buried their mother. In an old trailer, Vincent (20) goes along with his brother Sjoerd (26) on a path of drug abuse and nihilistic behavior. How strong can the love between two brothers, for their deceased mother, an old dog and for life itself be?

The Miracle of Almería

At the far end of Europe, on the southern border of Spain, lies Almería. It is a huge province completely covered with white plastic, harbouring Europe’s largest vegetable garden. It is the place where our tomatoes come from, even in winter. But under all the plastic, strange things happen… Today, the vegetable garden inevitably moves to Morocco. Spanish farmers dive well under their prices to keep in the race. 120.000 migrants work in slave-like conditions on the plantations.

Sevilla

Three youngsters take a road trip to Seville that will change their lives forever.