Jan Teulings

Five swindle stories, taking place in five international cities: Tokyo, Japan ("Fumiko's Five Benefactors" by Hiromichi Horikawa); Amsterdam, The Netherlands ("A River of Diamonds" by Roman Polanski); Naples, Italy ("The Road Map" by Ugo Gregoretti); Paris, France ("The Man Who Sold the Eiffel Tower" by Claude Chabrol); and Marrakesh, Morocco ("The Confidence Man" by Jean-Luc Godard). Godard's segment was not included in the original French cinema release, and Polanski's segment was not included on the 2016 home disc release.

An out of work engineer is hired as the private chauffeur of a rich playboy, and has to drive to Vlissingen to pick up the latter's fiancée. On the way back from Vlissingen, the car breaks down and the engineer and the fiancée travel to Rotterdam to get some spare parts -- a trip full of amorous entanglements and mistaken identities.

A young woman is seduced by a wealthy diplomat, who leaves her his business card and arranges to meet her. She goes to a jeweler and, using the card, asks to finalize a jewelry sale at her supposed husband's home. The jeweler arrives while the diplomat is taking a bath and is greeted by the young woman, who offers him tea.

On his wedding day, mere hours before the statute of limitations for his crimes expires, revengeful mobsters abduct former criminal Jean Verdier. The gang leader's daughter - who's still in love with Jean - tries to stall the police until the clock strikes twelve and he can no longer be prosecuted.

As years pass, the Craets-Goldeweyn family must cope with the disappearance of the familiar and the inescapable new that imposes itself.

The story of three torn apart families on the verge of Sinterklaasavond, the Dutch equivalent of Christmas Eve.

“Ciske de Rat” belongs to the Dickensean “little man’s hard life” model and tells a deceptively simple story about a boy in modern Netherlands. Persecution, loneliness, adults’ hostility, fear, mixture of obstinacy and tenderness, and even an imprisonment. Excellent camera movement and delicate portraying of Ciske’s fragile soul put this film out of merely historical context and ensure its place in the history of great cinema.

An independent-thinking doctor in a rural community with his own ideas of how medicine should be practiced begins to find himself ostracized from the community after one of his patients commits suicide.