Martin Koolhoven

Brimstone

In the menacing inferno of the old North-American West, Liz is a genuine survivor who is hunted by a vengeful preacher for a crime she didn’t commit.

Mr. K

Mr. K, a traveling magician, finds himself in a Kafkaesque nightmare when he can’t find the exit of his hotel. His attempts to get out only pull him deeper, entangling him further with the hotel and its curious inhabitants.

Winter in Wartime

During World War II in the freezing winter of 1944-45 the western Netherlands are in the grip of a famine. Many people move east to provide for their families. Fourteen year old Michiel can't wait to join the Dutch resistance, to the dismay of his father, who, as mayor, works to prevent escalations in the village.

Nederland leest Oeroeg

Reading relay of the novel 'Oeroeg' by Hella Haasse by eighty well-known and lesser-known Dutch people. Each person reads a page aloud, after which the book is passed on to the next reader. Philip Freriks, news anchor and ambassador for Nederland Leest, opens the reading relay. Director Shireen Strooker concludes it. 'Oeroeg' is Hella Haasse's debut novel from 1948. Haasse tells the story of the friendship between an Indonesian boy and the son of a Dutch administrator at a tea plantation in the Dutch East Indies before the Second World War. Gradually, the two boys grow apart. When the narrator, the Dutch boy, returns to the Indies—which has not yet quite become Indonesia—after studying in Delft, their estrangement turns out to have grown into a chasm. The final sentence reads: "Am I forever a stranger in the land of my birth, on the soil from which I do not wish to be uprooted? Time will tell."

Dark Light

A burglar gets caught on a farm by an older woman. The religious woman, who's body is covered with ulceration, believes he is there for a reason.

The Dick Maas Method

Documentary on the Dutch filmmaker Dick Maas.

Suzy Q

A weekend in the life of a bizarre family in the sixties. Their lives will never be the same after it.

AmnesiA

Alex, a 28 year-old photographer, is no longer able to photograph people, for some mysterious reason. Every time he focuses his camera on someone, the same woman appears in his viewfinder - an image he cannot bear. When his brother Aram, whom he has not seen or spoke to for years, unexpectedly phones him and asks him to come to their parental home because their mother is severely ill and may not have long to live, he panics. The thought of a confrontation with the area where he grew up and the renewed encounter with his family makes him feel nervous. Nevertheless, that evening he leaves for AmnesiA: the estate of his parents, the spot where he spent his youth.

Brimstone

In the menacing inferno of the old North-American West, Liz is a genuine survivor who is hunted by a vengeful preacher for a crime she didn’t commit.

Mr. K

Mr. K, a traveling magician, finds himself in a Kafkaesque nightmare when he can’t find the exit of his hotel. His attempts to get out only pull him deeper, entangling him further with the hotel and its curious inhabitants.

Winter in Wartime

During World War II in the freezing winter of 1944-45 the western Netherlands are in the grip of a famine. Many people move east to provide for their families. Fourteen year old Michiel can't wait to join the Dutch resistance, to the dismay of his father, who, as mayor, works to prevent escalations in the village.

Nederland leest Oeroeg

Reading relay of the novel 'Oeroeg' by Hella Haasse by eighty well-known and lesser-known Dutch people. Each person reads a page aloud, after which the book is passed on to the next reader. Philip Freriks, news anchor and ambassador for Nederland Leest, opens the reading relay. Director Shireen Strooker concludes it. 'Oeroeg' is Hella Haasse's debut novel from 1948. Haasse tells the story of the friendship between an Indonesian boy and the son of a Dutch administrator at a tea plantation in the Dutch East Indies before the Second World War. Gradually, the two boys grow apart. When the narrator, the Dutch boy, returns to the Indies—which has not yet quite become Indonesia—after studying in Delft, their estrangement turns out to have grown into a chasm. The final sentence reads: "Am I forever a stranger in the land of my birth, on the soil from which I do not wish to be uprooted? Time will tell."

Dark Light

A burglar gets caught on a farm by an older woman. The religious woman, who's body is covered with ulceration, believes he is there for a reason.

The Dick Maas Method

Documentary on the Dutch filmmaker Dick Maas.

Suzy Q

A weekend in the life of a bizarre family in the sixties. Their lives will never be the same after it.

AmnesiA

Alex, a 28 year-old photographer, is no longer able to photograph people, for some mysterious reason. Every time he focuses his camera on someone, the same woman appears in his viewfinder - an image he cannot bear. When his brother Aram, whom he has not seen or spoke to for years, unexpectedly phones him and asks him to come to their parental home because their mother is severely ill and may not have long to live, he panics. The thought of a confrontation with the area where he grew up and the renewed encounter with his family makes him feel nervous. Nevertheless, that evening he leaves for AmnesiA: the estate of his parents, the spot where he spent his youth.

The South

Martje is the manager of a successful laundry service, but in her personal life she struggles with her self-image after the amputation of one of her breasts. After she is humiliated when Loe, one of her employees, is startled by the discovery of her prosthesis during foreplay, she imprisons him in the laundry plant. As Loe is slowly dying in imprisonment, Martje loses contact with reality and starts imagining having a family with him.

The Cave

Psychological thriller. Geography teacher smuggles a case of heroin for a friend.

Soof

Soof is reaching 40 and has everything she ever wanted: three children, a small catering business, a sweet husband Kasper and a lovely home. Until she starts asking herself: 'is this all there is'?

Schnitzel Paradise

Schnitzel Paradise is a Dutch film about a young Moroccan man working in the kitchen of popular Dutch restaurant.

SEXtet

Sextet is a film about love and relationships in Amsterdam. It features an ingeniously interwoven plot of several stories and characters. Together with the feature SIMON (2004) this one is part of Terstall's trilogy about the liberties of the present Dutch society.

Venus

After all men worldwide commit suicide, Joyce becomes hopelessly addicted to the past and longs for her lost love. Looking for a way to get her boyfriend back, she comes into contact with a pseudoscientific group of women who try to manifest 'the male'. But should we want men back? Or might a world without men be better?

Bonkers

Bonnie, a nine-year-old single child, is part of a family of three living in the Netherlands. They have a love of elephants, passed on by Bonnie's grandfather's grandfather who worked on a game reserve in Africa, and Bonnie feels that she instinctively does things like an elephant as a result. Her single mother, Lis, is bi-polar and at times spends days on end without even getting out of bed. Then there are other times when she will manically do wild acts, such as impromptu dancing in public. As a result, Bonnie's sturdy and stable grandmother must hold the family together by doing all the cooking, etc. After her grandmother is killed by a car, Bonnie becomes the most responsible family member and struggles with preparing meals and getting her reluctant mother to take her medication. She also must dodge Jorien, a social worker who is attempting to place her in a foster home.

Happy Family

Thijs is a ripe-age Dutch tomato grower. His adult daughters plan to have him move in a skyscraper-flat, leaving home and professional life, but he takes his adolescent (half-)Moroccon grandson Omar's advice to refuse and keep living. Thijs even lets the cheerful rascal coach his love-life, which lands him on a blind date with Jacky, an energetic Flemish woman, who won't take no for an answer but turns up at his door-step till he consents, and soon drags him into evening life, preparing for a dance contest. Soon after Omar turns up, listless and lazier then ever, runaway from school and home. The obvious reason for the horny hound's hanging head is a girl: Mergal is foxy, Turkish and as smitten as he, but her burly big brother Erhan will only allow a boy to go steady with her who has proven himself his better on the field in the traditional manly sport of oil-wrestling. Now Thijs...

Emerald Butterfly

Batavia, 1946. In the heated aftermath of war and under colonial tension, a young Dutch soldier gets pulled into the world of an enigmatic Indonesian woman and a corrupt American diplomat. What begins as a search for a long-lost family heirloom, unfolds into a deadly game of identity, power, and betrayal – where everyone clings to their own reality, and the truth keeps changing.

Leeuw Panter Wolvin

A man wakes in a house where every room forces him closer to the end he has already lived.

De Wereld Draait Door

Talk show hosted by Matthijs van Nieuwkerk containing a mixture of news, information, television bloopers and general entertainment.

De Oranjezomer

Voor de show

Koolhoven Presents

A manless world, a nuclear missile on Amsterdam, a collective brainwash, and suffering as a recipe for success. Six filmmakers drag the viewer into their most terrifying fantasies.

De kijk van Koolhoven

Koolhoven's view is a series of film lectures given by film director and cinephile Martin Koolhoven. Using scenes from his favorite feature films, Koolhoven shares his love for cinema with viewers. No dry critiques and academic treatises, but enthusiastic speeches and inspired observations: Koolhoven is above all an enthusiast.