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Anouschka
An interactive production about a magical Black girl’s journey through space and time.
Director: Tamara Shogaolu
Screenwriter: Sandy Bosmans & Elinor Vanderburg
Production: Jamari Perry, Tamara Shogaolu & Marcela Stolzmann (Ado Ato Productions)
An acclaimed, Amsterdam-based playlist curator at a prominent music streaming company finds himself reconsidering his ambitions when an unexpectedly disconcerting job promotion interview sends him on a soulsearching summer day’s odyssey through the Dutch capital.
Director: Aaron Rookus (The Idyll & Other Exotics was part of BoostNL 2019-20; directed a Gouden Kalf winner. Een goed leven, 2015, nominated for Dutch Directors Guild Award in 2018)
Screenwriter: Wander Theunis
Producer: Laurette Schilings (Topkapi)
Co-producer: A Private View (BE)
When a struggling Surinamese stand up comedian creates a caricature of Black Pete to ridicule the racist Dutch Sinterklaas tradition, he finally reaches the success he so desperately desires. But his celebrity also makes him a mascot for the far right groups his family battles in the struggle for equality. When this battle comes to an explosive confrontation, our hero must for once and for all choose which side he is on: the eternal joke, or the inevitable revolution.
Screenwriter: Ashar Medina
Director: Gonzalo Fernandez
Producer: Ashar Medina, Gonzalo Fernandez & IJswater Films (NL)
A documentary about Candy Dulfer, a world renowned Dutch saxophone player, who is turning fifty this year. As the daughter of jazz-saxophonist Hans Dulfer both her parents have played a big role in her musical career as a fellow musician and manager. Now that they are aging, and her days of performing with superstars like Prince and Pink Floyd have long since passed, she needs to re-invent herself in difficult times.
Screenwriter and Director: Carin Goeijers
Producer: Sanne Cousijn & Camiel Zwart (Blackframe)
When Bosnian-born AISHA and cameraman ELIAS team up to shoot a documentary on the mysterious disappearance of Aisha’s brother, they cross paths with another film crew, who are creating an even more sinister narrative…
Director: Ruben Broekhuis (Exhibit #8 is Ruben’s feature debut)
Screenwriter: Sarah Offringa
Producer: Monique van Kessel (Make Way Film)
The sceptical priest Filippo (37) is sent by the Vatican to investigate and debunk a crying statue of the Virgin Mary in a border community in Limburg, where four years ago a boy shot and killed eleven of his schoolmates. Attracted and unsettled by the mute young woman Térèse (19) who discovered the tears, he gets entangled in the village’s grief and in a series of apparently miraculous events.
Director: Jaap van Heusden
Screenwriter: Rogier de Blok
Producer: Marc Bary (IJswater Films, previously part of BoostNL with the project La última primavera, which premiered at 2020 Festival de Cannes.)
An animation about a stout young lady, Ellen, who tries to break free from her bourgeois society. Embarking on an adventurous trip to the country of spooks and shadows, she encounters a formidable foe: Orlok the Vampire. Now Ellen has to make a dramatic sacrifice with which she may defeat the monster and gain her much-desired freedom.
Director and Screenwriter: Erik van Schaaik
Producer: Ate de Jong (Mulholland Pictures)
Introverted man-of-faith Jacob finds his daughter in an unexpected way when she goes missing during a hike in the jungle of Mexico.
Director and Screenwriter: Wout Malestein
Producer: Aydin Dehzad (Kaliber Film)
Elvie (10) lives in a mobile home on a campsite with her intellectually disabled mother. With the support of Elvie’s grandfather, the man who owns the campsite, the three of them have found an unorthodox way to function as a family. As Elvie starts to outgrow her mother, all while her grandfather loses his grip on life, their carefully constructed world starts to break apart.
Director and Screenwriter: Lilian Sijbesma (this script won the 2018 Visser-Neerlandia Award for Best Screenplay of the Netherlands and Flanders)
Producer: Germen Boelens & Kirsi Saivosalmi (Revolver Amsterdam)
A Flying Character tells a story about overcoming grief. After his mother’s death, a writer tries to clean up his life without succeeding until he finds a way to transform his pain: he will adopt another identity, parallel to his own, independent, with its own history, fears and desires.
Director and Screenwriter: Martina Juncadella
Producer: Julieta Juncadella (Una Presencia)
Nika and Nodo, two crusaders in contemporary Tbilisi, smell business opportunities when giant neon crucifixes appear around town. But selling home-size copies door-to-door turns out less successful than thought. Adding ‘holy electricity’ as an extra feature seems lucrative, but Nika fears to be doomed to hell. A black comedy about the power of religion and the dangers of gullibility.
Director and Screenwriter: Tato Kotetishvili
Producer: Irakli Metreveli (Zango Studio), Tekla Machavariani (Nushi Film)
Co-producer: The Film Kitchen (NL)
After his dog almost died on his way to Santiago de Compostella, Jacob Splinter, a senior in good physical shape, accepts the invitation of a man to take a break in his holiday home. When Jacob wants to resume his journey, the seemingly hospitable family has no intention of letting him go.
Director: Eelko Ferwerda
Screenwriter: Froukje Tan
Producer: Joram Willink & Maaike Neve (BIND)
Co-producer: Vico Films (IE)
While transporting a shipful of white desert sand from Hamburg to a city beach in Rotterdam inland boatman Jan discovers an East-African refugee camp in the hold of his family ship, De Maalstroom. These unexpected passengers force Jan to face the present world that has been passing him by for years.
Director: Teddy Cherim
Screenwriter: Kim Kokosky Deforchaux
Producer: Marten van Warmerdam (Graniet Film)
Marina, the only black teen in her wealthy private school, prepares for her dreamed 15th birthday party. Meanwhile, dozens of bodies with bullets holes are found in her tropical hometown. She remains unaffected, until she starts hanging out with Pedro, the seamstress’ son, a guy that could be her first love or the next body gunned down.
Director and Screenwriter: Laís Santos Araújo & Pethrus Tibúrcio (Aguda Cinema)
Producer: Nara Aragão & João Vieira Jr. (Carnaval Filmes)
Marionettes is a dark drama about Lola (10), who is desperate to belong to a group of children playing marionettes in a theatre production. Once the children start identifying with their characters, they gradually lose their grip on reality. When the group plans to murder an innocent woman, Lola has to ask herself how much she is willing to sacrifice in order to belong.
Director and Screenwriter: Arianne Hinz
Producer: Ibrahim Karatay & Reinier Selen (Rinkel Film)
The blade factory witnessed their father’s death. The only compensation offered to Hossam and Maro to relinquish their legal rights is to work in the same position as their father, next to the same person who caused their father’s accidental death.
Director and Screenwriter: Mohamed Rashad
Producer: Hala Lotfy (Hassala Films)
Co-producer: Caracteres Productions (FR)
Ben (17) starts working at a sawmill where he struggles to hold his own in a harsh masculine world. Growing up without a father and with an unpredictable mother has hampered his transition from boy to man for years. The discovery that his skin is slowly hardening and transforming into wood, raises Ben’s need to grow up.
Director: Flynn von Kleist
Screenwriter: Matthijs Bockting
Producer: Guusje van Deuren (The Rogues)
The Clock
A psychological thriller shifting between past and present, following the destiny of a brilliant professor in science and his fatal obsession for a very old astronomical clock.
Director: TBC
Screenwriter: Reinier Smit, based on an original script by George Sluizer & Nick Fisher
Producer: Anouk Sluizer (Sluizer Films)
Dakar
To find closure, the timid Sandra travels to Dakar where her only daughter died in a robbery during a gap year. When she finds out that Marit was on the trail of an international corruption scandal and was therefore murdered, she decides to complete her daughter’s investigation.
Director: Tim Oliehoek
Screenwriter: Alexander de Bruijn
Producer: Kaja Wolffers (NL Film)
Good Enough: Burnout Diary (Opgebrand: Burn-out Dagboek)
Maaike is an illustrator, lover of tea, and a perfectionist. Her life is fun fun fun, but also busy busy busy. Maaike optimistically pulls through the many long working days and social engagements, thanks to an ‘inner voice’ that she affectionately calls her Little Dictator. But when Maaike gets a full-on panic attack, out of nowhere, her deepest fear becomes reality: she can no longer be perfect…
Director: Dario van Vree
Screenwriter: Eveline Hagenbeek, Dario van Vree
Producer: Tünde Vollenbroek (Studio Pupil)
Mengelberg
Willem Mengelberg was once a brilliant conductor, but between 1940 and 1945 he was lost in the extramusical reality of war and Nazism. Sequestered in the Swiss Alps he is surrounded by three women yearning for his love and attention. All three try to support him in his fight against the demons from his past. Music is ultimately the only thing he has.
Director and Screenwriter: Annette Apon
Producer: Digna Sinke & Hugo Naber (SNG Film)
Monument
The highly gifted Alice desires nothing more than to secure her latest invention with a patent. But the male-dominated patent office keeps rejecting her application. Therefore Alice ventures out on an obsessive tour-de-force to fight for her mysterious masterpiece.
Director and Screenwriter: Christoph Rainer
Producer: Maximilian Haslberger (Amerika Film)
Roxy
When cheeky, enthusiastic detective Roxy (10), driven by an indomitable love of truth, moves to Berlin, she falls straight into the biggest case of her life. She can only solve this case with the help and friendship of two other loners: Annaté and the mysterious “compulsive hoarder” Mr. Grindelmann.
Director: Joachim Massanek
Screenwriter: Katharina Reschke
Producer: Oliver Schütte (Tellfilm Deutschland GmbH)
Co-producer: Phanta Basta! (NL)
Sirens Call
The experimental documentary SIRENS CALL (WT) focusses on the contemporary phenomenon of ‘real-life Mermaids’ in Europe and the United States. For various reasons, men and women worldwide take over the identity of a mermaid. SIRENS CALL follows different main characters and their different motives. Human, animal and cyborg merge into one.
Director and Screenwriter: Miriam Gossing & Lina Sieckmann
Producer: Claus Reichel (FilmFaust)
Co-producer: Elbe Stevens Film (NL)
Darlington Academy
After learning what’s happening behind closed doors, Ellory must stay alive long enough to plot an escape from her new school.
Director: TBC
Screenwriter: Sarah-Kate Fenelon
Producer: TBC
Lima 616
The cost of war is hell unbound. When an elite special forces unit accidentally kill the son of an Afghan Warlord during a black ops raid they unleash a demon intent on revenge.
Director: Martin Stalker
Screenwriter: Colin Weldon
Producer: Jules Charlton (Veridian 3 Films)
Oileán
When a remote Irish island is forced to evacuate, Thomas, 50, refuses to leave. Left alone that night, he cannot move forward until he confronts the ghosts of his past.
Director: TBC
Screenwriter: Deborah Grimes
Producer: TBC
Outside the Family
A career-driven mother turns her attention to her teenage son who is having an affair with an older man. This triggers a deeper family crisis as she is forced to re-evaluate her relationship with her son as well as her place in the Irish society. All of this is against the background of an economic recession that threatens to tear this family apart.
Director: Miro Mirko Mastropasqua
Screenwriter: Roberto Scarpetti & Miro Mirko Mastropasqua
Producer: Anniina Kankaansivu
Brutes
Three years after a plane crash left her marooned on an isolated island, intersex sixteen year-old Semani sets out to rejoin the group of schoolmates she has become estranged from. When faced with her rival Noni’s strange new rules and way of life, Semani has to decide whether to try and change the girls – or join them.
Director and Screenwriter: Lucy Brydon
Producer: Jessie Mangum (Thought Experiment Ltd.)
This Is Home
When a quiet young dealer falls in love with the guy who stashes his drugs, and an overweight shop-keeper falls for a homeless girl – they are forced to choose between the people they love and the lives they’ve always known. This Is Home opens on a rain-soaked Scottish council estate, and ends with the discovery of alien life deep off the coast of Spain.
Director: TBC
Screenwriter: Silas Parry
Producer: Gill Parry (feral inc.)
Following COVID-19 and the stagnation of the economy, the transmedia documentary focuses on “Hosselaars” who see opportunities in times of crisis and are used to operating on the margins of the Western economy. Will the survival strategies – ever created by the lack of proper diplomas, background or opportunities – be newly appreciated expertise in the post-corona era?
Director and Screenwriter: Ivan Winter & Isaura Sanwirjatmo
Producer: Daniel de Keijzer (Eighty5ive) & Stefanie Vermeiren (Maak Impact)
Netty, a bright 12 year old girl is relieved when she, her little sister and mother move from Surinam to the Netherlands. Unfortunately, her old live keeps hunting her. It triggers her to adapt to the Dutch customs as much as she possibly can. The last thing that she wants is to go back to Surinam. Her new Dutch friend is going to help her.
Director and Screenwriter: Shafelly Snijders
Producer: TBC
Presenting four emerging Dutch film talents – two writer-directors, two producers – to the industry and world at large.
Tom van Blommestein
Previously a creative producer at NL Film, Tom van Blommestein currently works at Lemming Film where he focuses on the production of drama series with an international focus as well as commercial films.
Chris Stenger
Since graduating from the Netherlands Film Academy in 2014, Chris Stenger has worked for production company Family Affair Films, focusing on new talent and animation. She produced the short stop-motion film Human Nature, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2019 and was also nominated for a Golden Calf.
Ashgan El-Hamus
Ashgan El-Hamus graduated from the Netherlands Film Academy in screenplay in 2017. She wrote both seasons of the popular youth series SKAM NL and her directorial debut Birdland, which she also wrote, will premiere at the upcoming Netherlands Film Festival, competing in the Golden Calf Short and NFF Debut Competitions.
Aiman Hassani
Self-taught filmmaker Aiman Hassani made the SHORT! #YOLO4REAL, the Teledoc Campus film You are Moroccan, right? and Centraal Khata, which premiered consecutively at NFF 2017, 2018 and 2019. Centraal Khata was the Dutch entry for the International Emmy Awards.
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Go to our HFM page
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