Theo van Gogh

A black comedy set in the 1960s in a small Netherlands community, populated by a cast of eccentrics, all of whom hold a range of sexual obsessions and frustrated desires.

Twenty-five films from twenty-five European countries by twenty-five European directors.

Overstimulated by flamboyant props and distracted by extravagant queens pacing up and down the rooms and corridors, one easily forgets the 18th-century country house serving as the backdrop in Tadzio. Yet this imposing bourgeois mansion was the starting point of it all, as well as the only constraint the directing duo of the short film had to consider. An eminent Dutch cultural critic, Els Hoek, challenged several artists to feature this particular place in an audiovisual artwork. She provided them with a generous budget and left them to do the rest. Three films emerged from her idea – Tadzio among them.

A bartender watches with amusement as two strangers meet and duel verbally in his bar. Katya, a former dancer, is trying to forget the death of her young daughter. Pom, a comedian known for his verbal thrust and parry, tries to charm, shock and disgust his date in turn.

The film tells the story of six mental cases, trying to get rid of society's norms and values by kidnapping Gerard van Dongen, a well-known TV host. During an improvised TV show, the terrorists confront this Van Dongen with their darkest thoughts and emotions, resulting in violent excesses and extreme sexual behavior.

The new bank manager tries to get rid of two difficult bank employees by playing them off against each other in a devious way. Looking for weaknesses, acquired privileges are withdrawn and one employee is used to catch the other committing fraud. The pressure continues to mount. Then a former customer is brought in, a man bent on revenge who still hasn't gotten over a bankruptcy from the distant past.

Sarah, 30, single, well educated, likes art, places a voice ad for phone sex, inviting replies from men under 35, sturdy and sensual. Wilbert, a chubby middle aged architect, leaves a message that he is Thomas, 32 and well formed. A week later, she phones. She likes his voice, he likes her laugh, so once a week she phones him (he's not to know her last name, where she lives, or her number). Portraits emerge of humor and sadness. He presses for details of her life and tells her about his work; she wants these Thursday calls to be fantasy and release, separate from the rest of who she is. The film dramatizes these tensions of lies and truth, connection and distance. Written by

The Kourdic poet Ibrahim Aziz is suspected of being a member of the Kourdic Marxistic Leninistic Front and enlists the help of his lawyer Wies to receive political asylum in the Netherlands.