Layla Meijman

To a Land Unknown

The stakes couldn't be higher for displaced Palestinian refugees Chatila and Reda in this knife-edge drama. The cousins are saving to pay for fake passports to get out of Athens, but when Reda loses their hard-earned cash to his drug addiction, Chatila hatches an extreme plan to pose as smugglers in an attempt to get them out of their desperate situation before it is too late.

Idyllic

Three generations of one Dutch family, along with the neighbors they encounter, question their lives — from their relationships and the value of their existence to their concerns for the future.

Kiddo

Lying on a bunk bed in a children's home, eleven-year-old Lu talks with dreamy eyes about her mother, Karina, who claims to be a famous Hollywood actress who smells of oranges, talks to the stars and does her own stunts.

Boy Meets Gun

When the bored out philosopher Maarten Moreau gets caught up in a robbery, he accidentally gets hold of the weapon. Seized by a renewed appetite for life, Maarten decides to keep the gun. A true romance blossoms between the boy and the gun, not without consequences.

Kumbh

“A dream came to me from who knows where having slept as two I awake as one / the other wasn’t there”. Two young men on a blind date start their journey outside the city. Unknowingly they become a part of maze of a pilgrimage of sadhus. They look around, they observe, they smile, they doubt, they whisper. They are lost, they are found. Two young men stroll curiously around the Kumbh Mela, a huge religious festival involving millions of Hindus. They are wearing modern clothing, which makes them stand out among the pilgrims, most of whom are in traditional dress. Kumbh Mela, which takes place every three years at one of the four major Hindu sites (Haridwar, Allahabad, Ujjain and Nasik), is seen as the biggest pilgrimage in the world, bringing the many faces of Hinduism together. There are naked sadhus smeared in ash, rich gurus collecting donations, musicians and other performers, and simple pilgrims washing away their sins by ritual bathing in the river.

Even Cowboys Get to Cry

When Sven provokes a fight after an evening out in Amsterdam his best friend ends up in a coma, and nothing is the same as before.