Maryam Hassouni

A thirty-something aspiring children's author, labeled "meskina" (pity case) by her Moroccan-Dutch community for still being career-less and single, sets out to once and for all find professional success and true love.

A chance opportunity arises for Robert Atkinson, a London banker who risks his bank's money to leave the mundane behind and start a new life. To take advantage, he unwittingly signs up with a Chinese cartel to transport a briefcase to Amsterdam. But all is not as it seems in a city veiled by dark secrets. Fuelled by power players, drugs, seduction and violence, Robert awaits his turn in a deadly game of choice and consequence.

A group of teenagers are on a school trip to Croatia, but when the bus flat-tires they have to stay in an abandoned village. There the group of friends get sent to another dimension in a medieval time zone, they must now walk the path of 7 sins to save themselves and return home.

Dunya and Desie are two 18 year old best friends from Amsterdam North. Dunya is Moroccan and Desie is Dutch. On Dunya's Birthday she is told that her marriage has been arranged with a distant cousin in Morocco. Dunya and her family will travel to Morocco to meet him. After Desie discovers that she is pregnant she joins Dunya in Morocco in a search for Desies father.

Doodslag (Dutch for "Manslaughter") is the story of Max, a paramedic who is repeatedly hindered in performing his duties by loutish behaviour. As his ambulance hurries towards a complicated childbirth, some youths prevent Max from reaching the distressed woman in labour. Spurred on by the emergency and the incendiary words of a TV pundit, he reaches a boiling point and forcefully hits one of the men obstructing his ambulance. Max's strike has far-reaching, unintended consequences.

Dutch-Kurdish Ceylan is living the perfect life; and has a nice boyfriend, Bastiaan. However, the war in her homeland is fighting for her attention. She no longer can handle watching the misery on TV without taking action. Therefore she decides to become 'Peshmerga' and say goodbye to her secure life with Bastiaan, maybe forever.

Anna starts and ends in euphoria: brother and sister Stijn and Brecht have both put the ghosts of the past behind them and she has finally said 'yes' to the tall waiter who has been courting her for so long. In their tragic past, the mysterious Anna plays a key role. When some time later Anna suddenly reappears, she again turns the siblings' life topsy-turvy.

Cruel politics and intensive love. Najla (N) has just finished her medical studies in Rome. Sherko (S) conceals sick and injured partisans. Mokhtar (M) belongs to the dictator's police. S and M love N, N loves S. When she gets a letter from S that she must forget him, she returns to Kirkuk. As a doctor she can help S. Mokhtar follows her trail and S and N are arrested. S is tortured. N is beaten up and then offered the job as a police doctor, a reward for leading the police to S. She accepts because then she can collect and pass on the names of people murdered or tortured. She will attend many mass murders of women and children. Once she can save them by fabricating that a child has cholera, with greater risk of contamination if she is dead. – When M understands that he cannot win N's love, he smuggles both N and S out of the country. Fully aware of the consequences he distracts the border guards and is shot by them. Max Scharnberg, Stockholm, Sweden