I'm Never Afraid!

In a world where fantasy meets reality, Tengkwa leads a band of Dutch wrestlers and tries to train a new generation of superheroes. With slim chances of fame and glory, only the most die-hard of them will succeed.

With verve and humour, teacher Peter van Maaren, a gay man converted to Islam, gives workshops about sexual and religious diversity to his pupils in primary and secondary schools. Without judgement and exploring their language, he opens sensitive topics up for discussion, triggering disarming and often confronting debates in class. But how do the pupils react when Peter tells them about his private life? Documentary about the importance of conducting safe and open discussions at school about subjects that some people consider taboo.

At the age of 15, can you know if you ever want to conceive or give birth to a child? The team coordinator at the gender clinic in the Dutch city of Zaandam is doubtful. And yet this is one of the questions he asks the young people who register for psychological guidance. A fellow psychologist trusts that young people know what is good for them. He is a trans man and one of the experts by experience who work at the clinic. The use of language, already such a sensitive instrument, proves to be more complex than some expect. There are those who see it as unnecessary to mention your pronouns when you introduce yourself, but the majority are in favor. Director Ingrid Kamerling switches smoothly between observation and interviews. Above all, there is a sense of the need to equip young people and their parents as well as possible for the emotional journey of drastic change that lies ahead of them.

There could hardly be a more telling contrast between the analog and digital eras than the beautifully blurry memories captured in a Polaroid picture and the thousands of pin-sharp photos on an iPhone. In this ambitious visual essay, Willem Baptist explores the visionary genius of Edwin H. Land, the inventor of the Polaroid camera. Even today, all sorts of people are keeping his instant dream alive. Former Polaroid employee Stephen Herchen moved from the United States to Europe to work in a laboratory developing the 2.0 version of Polaroid. Christopher Bonanos, the author of Instant: The Story of Polaroid, tells us, "When I heard Polaroid would stop making film, it felt like a close friend had died." Artist Stefanie Schneider, who is working with the last of her stock of Polaroid film, is using the blurring that occurs with expired film as an additional aesthetic layer in her photographic work.

“Let’s see if you gained any weight. 26,3 kilogram. Ahmet, you need to eat more. Double meals.” Like other boys their age, Baran, Ahmet and their classmates wrestle with the desire for recognition, with homesickness and with their target weights. Most of all though, they wrestle with, and against, one another. They are comrades and competitors, united by one and the same dream: Olympic gold! In their wrestling academy in the Turkish province of Amasya, which is well known for this traditional form of combat sport, they undergo strength and endurance training, they learn lifts and throws, they urge each other on and they console one another. Always responding to the boys’ needs, the trainers give the boys tough love, sometimes fatherly, sometimes strict and disciplinary. The film’s intimate documental camera bears close witness to the fine line between friendship and competition, victory and the lesson of how to lose.

Fourteen-year-old Shabu is a good-natured, creative, and street-smart boy from the south of Rotterdam. When he wrecks his grandmother’s car on a joyride, his whole family is angry with him. He has a summer to make amends before his grandmother returns from a vacation in Suriname.

A feature documentary about a self chosen family living in Rotterdam. At the head of the family is mother and dragqueen Ma'MaQueen, who has created a safe haven for her six ‘drag children,’ not all of whom can count on understanding from their biological family. Together they find support, security and a home in which fantasy becomes reality.

In Bird Strike, we see how man and animal must share the air space and the resulting consequences. In this visual story different characters struggle with their curious relationship with unpredictable flying troublemakers. Will man manage to get his own way, or will nature have the final say in this battle for the skies?

Through the ritual of saying sorry, a bold journey explores how apologies redefine history and what happens to us as witnesses to the act of atonement.

With a visual style that alternates between intimate verité moments, meditative reflection and suspenseful sequences, the film tells the story of Chief Ramon Gonzalez, detective Manuel Casas and officer Mayra Garza, as they navigate the complexities of their existence on the US/Mexican border.

An archival fiction feature about the eternal battle of the sexes, in which two star-crossed lovers trapped in a kingdom of shadows fight to keep their love alive as they gradually fall in hate. Their names are Forever Man and Forever Woman. They are embodied by actors and actresses from long-gone eras, but also by cartoon characters and puppet animations. Together they narrate the story of the euphoric ups and tragic downs of human existence. When Forever Dies, a virtuoso collage of film fragments from the Eye Filmmuseum archive, is an epic ode to largely unseen cinema anchored in the polarizing world of today.

Guy Weizman is an Israeli/Moroccan theater director and choreographer leading a group of international performers. His creative struggles come to light while working on his latest project: BEFORE/AFTER. A force of creation and (self) destruction is laid bare, while we see his persona reflected in his art - or is it the other way around? Can the group keep up with Guy's intuitive way of working? As the influence of the relationship the director has with his mother becomes more apparent, a metaphorical virus slowly comes to life, while in the real world the premiere is threatened with a virus of its own: COVID-19. In a documentary that blurs the lines between performance and reality we see how this threat may or may not be part of his end game. Creating a world from nothing is harder than it seems.

As the first artist in the Dutch Kingdom freely using his work to explain what it means to be queer and Caribbean, Felix de Rooy broaches some sensitive subjects. Despite the relevance and artistic value of his works, he is not included in the white art scene. This documentaryconfronts viewers with the volatility of life, when Felix suffers a stroke. Next, something surprising happens: As a result of a changing social awareness, young creatives of colour look back and realise on whose shoulders they are standing. And there is a retrospective of De Rooy’s work at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. Suddenly, Felix gets the acknowledgement he deserves.