Hugo Heinen

March 11th, 2002. John R. takes the head of security and 17 others hostage in Amsterdam biggest skyscraper. John R. demands to speak with the Philips head of Sound&Vision. His goal is to warn people about a large-scale fraud, aimed at brainwashing consumers by means of widescreen TV sets. In the film, we find out about John's preliminary frustrations, his bizarre encounter with Philips head of Sound&Vision Gerard Wesselinck, their impossible friendship, rivalry and John's armed attempt to force the executive to do penance in public.

Gerrit de Veer, a novice writer on a 16th-century Dutch merchant vessel, chronicles the daring mission to discover a trade route across the North Pole to Asia. But the heroic journey turns into tragedy when the ship gets stuck in the relentless, penetrating ice. The men are forced to spend the winter on the frozen, arctic wasteland of Nova Zembla, fighting polar bears, hunger and lethal temperatures. Their chances of making it until the following spring are virtually zero.

Frank de Roover returns to the village of his birth, Portland. There he reconnects with his childhood friends Peter and Koos, as well as the girl all three of them fell in love with, Lili.

Koekebakker is a successful journalist. His old mates, however, turned out failures: Bekker has lost all hope of changing the world, Hoyer works for the socialist party, Bavink suffers from mental problems and Kees is a simple laborer.

The story of a loving man and father who falls under the influence of an extremely orthodox Protestant sect. He sacrifices everything and everyone to this faith, including his business and the respect of his younger son. However, he never loses the love of his wife.

Debuting Iraq-born, Netherlands-based writer/director Ibrahim Selman starts out on docu ground, with a voiceover explaining his objectives and the film’s stand-in location, and recalling Kurdistan before the advent of war. He then shifts into narrative mode, with glimpses of life in a mountain village caught in the conflict between Iraqi military authorities and peshmergas (guerrilla freedom fighters).

After 21-year-old student Tonio dies in a traffic accident, his novelist parents face sorrow and regret as they suffer the agony of losing their only child.

I don't know who I am - that's what it is', the seventeen-year-old curly redhead Jordi grumbles to his tough girlfriend. Under mother's wing, Jordi spends all his time on the Internet. His only adventure is a ride on the back of his girlfriend's motorbike. One day, a coincidental but shocking discovery on the Net forces him to start searching for his identity, away from his familiar environment. It takes him to a confrontation with his biological father who was supposed dead, but appears to live in Ireland and does not immediately press his lost son in his arms. Kilkenny Cross is a coming-of-age drama, in which the Dutch urban water landscape contrasts with the green hills of Ireland and the impassiveness of modern means of communication with the longing for human intimacy. A chat session between mother and son leads to an emotional climax. In a cameo role, female novelist Manon Uphoff explains what true love means.