The Netherlands Film Film Festival is both the home of Dutch cinema and the leading platform for the Netherlands’ national film culture. It celebrates the achievements of Dutch filmmakers and provides the bridge between film culture and all facets of Dutch society. The festival is the most powerful tool we have to engage a large and varied audience in everything that Dutch cinema has to offer. It is active throughout the year, stimulating and promoting Dutch film culture before the 9-day extravaganza in late September when lots of premieres and the cream of the previous 12 month production output is presented.

For professionals, the Netherlands Film Festival is the most important full-scale platform for independent, art-house, content-driven exchange and innovation. As a catalyst for renewal the festival promotes cross-pollination between disciplines and actively seeks to forge links between the drivers of urgent, artistic and socially engaged cinema.

The Netherlands Film Festival presents Dutch film culture within both national and international contexts, at all times navigating the tension between artistic and commercial, between the popular and the elite, familiar and adventurous, past and present, the local and the global.

NFF mirrors and responds to continuous changes and trends within the Dutch culture and the media landscape, putting paid to any notion that ‘Le cinéma est mort!” But these days, cinema is more than just films, and so NFF incorporates into its program disciplines that draw inspiration from, and themselves influence, the cinematic narrative form, from TV drama, music and visual arts to games and interactive productions – all experienced through and across myriad platforms, but all nevertheless essential parts of the Dutch film culture.

The Netherlands Film Festival has, during its 40+ years, served, interpreted, analysed, debated and recorded the evolution of Dutch film culture, its strengths and its vibrancy. And in the process it has entertained a large, diverse and very cinema-savvy Dutch audience.

About the competitions

During the Nederlands Film Festival, different Dutch movie awards are presented and the selected and nominated productions are screened. Apart from the recurring Golden Calf Competition, these include the Directors’ Forum, as well as the NFF Student Competition and NFF Debut Competition, both part of NFF Talent.

• Golden Calf Competition
  The grand prizes of Dutch cinema, equivalents of the British BAFTAs, French Césars and German LOLAs.
• The Directors’ Forum
  NFF's competition for boundary-pushing cinema.
• NFF Student Competiton
  For many graduating students from Dutch film and art academies, the NFF is the first opportunity to present their productions to a large audience.
• NFF Debut Competition
  First-time directors in all genres are eligible for the NFF Debut Competition. The City of Utrecht supports this competition with the Film Prize of the City of Utrecht: a sculpture and a €7.500 cash prize.