Music for the Millions

The last words of the gangster Dutch Schultz form the starting point for this animated documentary. The FBI noted these words down on Schultz’ deathbed, in the hope he would betray his colleagues. Here, spoken in the english version by Rutger Hauer, they accompany the sober, pencil drawn animation based on traced (film) images from Schultz’ time: the late 1920s, early 1930s.

In the beginning there was a hand, and this hand drew other hands, then shoulders, heads, legs and finally, the animator himself. Inspired by a wide range of works of art and styles of illustration, this is a film which is constantly reinventing itself in one continual motion - after all, to draw a "still life" would be like creating an image without life.

Two couples of dancing partners continually transform into different appearances, including numerous famous historical and pop culture characters.

An associative linking of erotic and pornographically suggestive transformations, whereby the unity is preserved by placing the action in a frame.

Critique against the increasing urbanization. A static shot depicts the story of a butterfly whose living space is increasingly limited by the construction of houses and factories. New construction rapidly fills the green environment of the butterfly until it ends up on the wall, pinned up and framed.

Surrealist animation about two cubes who come alive against a constantly changing background. The cubes go through the process of growing up and getting older. They fall in love, make love, and conceive new cubes. The idyll ends cruelly in an all-destroying war.

Film material from the forties found in a jumble sale adapted into a contemporary clip. An unknown female singer performs before the camera while (animated) people and animals parade by. The title alludes to the catering on the rainy Sunday afternoon when the film was conceived and made.

The clip shows a film fragment in which the French film comedian Fernandel shuffles along the street sadly and apparently aimlessly. Colours are introduced onto the original black-and-white material with felt pens and needles.

Emma Westermann's documentary shows the final six months in the life of Dutch animation grandmaster Gerrit van Dijk. Every night, he makes one drawing for his last animation films. A cinematic testament to one of the most distinguished Dutch film artists of our times.

The Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States, presented as a game. In front of the nervous citizens the leaders of the world powers play 'Olleke Bolleke' on the globe. The earth apparently cannot withstand this violence and the consequences are left to the imagination.

In a series of transformations, a boy with a football under his arm is transformed into increasingly aggressive-looking sportsmen.

Colourful lines and geometric figures move and change to the notes of a disjointed Wilhelmus [Dutch national anthem]. As the film progresses the disjointed music finds its way back to the original and flowing performance of the national anthem. The colours and figures move simultaneously into the shape and the tricolour of the Dutch flag.

Short animation by Gerrit van Dijk

The miracle of life takes place to the tune of the drinking song from Gustav Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde. The game of love between man and woman as a prelude to the creation of new life: the birth and growth of Janneke, Gerrit van Dijk’s daughter.

A man is pursued by aggressive advertising images. he finds himself in a labyrinth of advertisements from where he escapes and subsequently ends up in advertising heaven. There an ironic fate awaits him...