Once Upon Amsterdam

Presents a day in the life in Amsterdam, a city in transformation, captured shortly after the turn of the millennium, and shortly before the digital revolution would speed up the pace of life considerably. Shot in a fly-on-the-wall style.

2021-12-31 | en

Wild Amsterdam

The city from the unique perspective of the many wild animals and plants that inhabit it. Seen through the eyes of the adventurous urban cat, Abatutu.

2018-03-01 | nl

How to Squash a Squat

1989, New York City's Alphabet City and East Village. A year after the Tompkins Square Park Riot, squatters and their community allies try to stop the demolition of their building after an arson. Police forces occupy the neighborhood while the demolition continues. A portrait of an East Village that is no more. An homage to the voices and sounds of a neighborhood before its gentrification.

1989-01-01 | en

I'm Afraid It's a No

Eighteen-year-old Sofie is looking for a room in Amsterdam. So she has to interview for them. Time and again she has to convince the residents of student houses that she is the most suitable candidate for the vacant room. The competition is fierce, the residents are ruthless. Who is accepted by the group, who is rejected? How far will the candidates go? And what does that process of judging and being judged do to Sofie?

2017-09-23 | nl

Aunt Iki

Sigrid Koetse, award-winning actor and grande dame of Dutch theater, lived most of her life in the public eye and was always surrounded by a crowd of admirers. With this short documentary, filmmaker Wytse Koetse shows how his aunt spends her days nowadays, lonely in her Amsterdam home.

2022-02-04 | nl

400km à pied jusqu'à Amsterdam (le plus gros défi de ma vie)

2023-11-03 | fr

De minder gelukkige terugkeer van Joszef Katus naar het land van Rembrandt

The dutchified Hungarian Joszef Katús returns, after a months-long absence, to Amsterdam on 29 April 1966. The arrival of the Provos changed a great deal in the Dutch capital. The film follows Katús, mostly roaming the streets, in a loose documentary style. The events are set against the backdrop of four national occasions - The Queen's Birthday, Labour Day, Liberation Day and Remembrance Day.

1966-08-03 | nl

Berlin Utopiekadaver

A taxi drives through the city of Berlin. Its driver is a punk, left and a well-known figure in the autonomous scene. The stations of his trip are the most important places of the autonomous scene: all in the struggle for survival. The last evictions have not yet been processed and the next ones are coming right up.

2024-04-25 | de

Nigella’s Amsterdam Christmas

Nigella returns for a very special Christmas treat when she travels to Amsterdam to enjoy the festive season in the Venice of the North.

2023-12-21 | en

In een tank kun je niet wonen

A documentary about “1980” in Amsterdam, by Jan Groen and Hanneke Willemse Documentary originally recorded on super 8 about the squatters' movement in Amsterdam

| en

Sexwork, Love & Mr Right

Amsterdam's world-famous red-light district is the fascinating backdrop to the story of plucky prostitute Lina as she searches for Mr Right. Lina thinks she has found true love with American punter Sean, but she may be treading a fine line between fantasy and reality. Could Sean be her Prince Charming or will she end up heartbroken? With hard-won access to this notoriously secretive, hidden world, Sexwork, Love & Mr Right will be a revealing and thought-provoking documentary with multiple supporting narratives from experienced punters to wise madams. As streetwise sexworker Lina navigates the highs and lows of her precarious new relationship, the film asks can sexworkers ever really find true love?

2013-10-01 | en

Haven, Roaming Through the Night

Nocturnal life in the partly deserted dock area of Amsterdam. Director Marjoleine Boonstra encounters lone wolves, leading secluded lives in makeshift shelters, and people that work as pilots, night watchmen or skippers. According to a young pilot `it was actually like a dream', working by the IJ river at night. And this is what it looks like: a dream world. Between interviews, Boonstra makes her camera glide through the area, along the quay, across the water, along cranes, containers and sea-going vessels. A world of lamps, reflections and shadows. In this landscape of stone and metal, an extraordinary group of individuals lives and works. For example, an English woman cleans up a submarine for a party, a refugee from former Yugoslavia has created a place for himself and a night watchman has to `see to it that that boat stays where it is'. Peaceful music emphasises the relative quiet, in which the interviewees reflect on their lives and the harbour.

2004-11-29 | nl

Hans, Life Before Death

Hans: Het Leven voor de dood (Hans, Life Before Death) is a documentary feature film about the life of the young composer Hans van Sweeden (1939-1963) and those who knew him intimately. The film is about the harrowing life of the musician, poet and actor Hans van Sweeden (1939-1963), who ended his life at the age of 24. Simultaneously, the film offers a poignant portrait of his contemporaries in the turbulent fifties and sixties and the children of the Nazis. It won the Golden Calf for Best Feature Film in 1983. Award of the Dutch film critics, 1983; the Belgian film critics Award, 1984; Best Dutch Documentary 1980-1990. (Wikipedia)

1983-01-01 | en

Mother Land

When filmmaker Mari Soppela took her children and husband to live for a year on a sacred mountain in her native Finland, she was fulfilling a lifelong dream to share the arctic wilderness of her childhood with her family. But when years later her children turn the camera onto her, she is forced to confront her motivation for filming their lives in this searching and searingly honest cinematic exploration of identity, belonging and motherhood. Filmed over the course of 27 years, Mother Land challenges us all to examine the landscapes we carry within us and the narratives we create to make sense of our lives.

2022-02-02 | fi

Embassy of the Free Mind

UNESCO Memory of the World: Explore the Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica’s new home with 25,000+ rare books on alchemy, hermetica & mysticism at the Embassy of the Free Mind museum, set in Amsterdam’s historic canal mansion, the House with the Heads.

2024-12-12 | en

Squatters: The Other Philadelphia Story

Discusses the squatters movement, made up of people who live in abandoned houses through necessity and in order to force change in housing policy. Focuses on Philadelphia, where Gloria Giles becomes a leader and gains a national reputation.

1984-07-08 | en

De Platoschool

The Platoschool was founded in Amsterdam in 1983, a primary school for parents who wanted more than just math and language for their children. The founders of the Platoschool had great ideals, ideals that the parents of documentary maker Yara Hannema fell in love with. The children would grow into special people with a high level of consciousness, but the teachers ran wild in their strictness and discipline. There was beating and abuse of authority. The school was discredited and had to close its doors in 2002.

2023-03-05 | nl

The Re-Up

A backstage and on-stage look at Nicki Minaj's career during the Pink Friday Tour, festivals, and more.

2012-11-19 | en

The New Rijksmuseum

At the end of 2003 the main building of the Amsterdam Rijksmuseum has closed, in the words of managing director Ronald de Leeuw, becoming 'the most conceivable art museum'. The Spanish architects Cruz and Ortiz signed for the big design; in 2008 the modernized museum would open with a pioneering museum concept. Moviemaker Hoogendijk followed the first four years of what is called the biggest Dutch cultural operation in history.

2008-11-21 | nl

The Hole’s Journey

A worn-out floor, the hole underneath, a political activist, and the Ouled Sbita tribe are the protagonists in this political satire. For 23 years, the director’s chair at an international art institute scratched the wooden floor. This 102cm x 120cm floor section is cut out and sent to an expropriated piece of land in Morocco. In The Hole’s Journey, Ghita Skali uses sharp wit, personal stories and playful editing to touch on specific power dynamics and freedom of choice.

2021-02-03 | ar