Beyond the Game

Dutch documentary filmmaker Jos de Putter directs this portrait of Chechnya's charismatic leader Khoozh-Ahmend Noukhaev. The film shows the dashing leader touring about the strategically sensitive independent region of Russia as if he were a feudal lord. He doles out $100 bills to villagers, makes grandiose plans for the bombed out capital of Grozny, and dispenses with presidents at a whim.

Portrait of a traditional youth dance group from Grozny, Chechnya, on tour in Europe. Images of daily life in ruined Grozny combined with poetic visuals of performances. The art of survival.

Leonardo and Anselmo are both eleven years old and live in the slums of Rio de Janeiro. It is the summer of 1994, the World Championship Soccer is held in the USA, and Brazil is the favorite for the world title. Leonardo and Anselmo dream of becoming professional soccer players, to escape the poverty and violence of their slum. They fantasize of being able to organize a barbecue, once they have made it. Some of their friends want to become fishermen, but when they go boating on the lake, they find a corpse in the water (victim of yet another drug-related crime). Leonardo and Anselmo play for the team of Nova Saffra, a home for poor kids. But when a scout of a famous team arrives, everything might change: he invites both Leonardo and Anselmo to play a test match. During this once in a lifetime opportunity, Anselmo forgets his shoes and his father is nowhere to be found. Leonardo realizes he will have to make a tough decision

Poetic, painful documentary about three retired apes: a film star, a scientist and a cripple. They look back at their lives and the intriguing relationship between humans and apes. Who watches whom, and who learns from this?

The mystery of the author of the 1937 cult novel Ali and Nino - a recently-rediscovered Romeo and Juliet of the Caucasus - is explored in Alias Kurban Saïd. Renowned Dutch documaker Jos de Putter travels from Azerbaijan to Austria to the U.S., chasing down who wrote the book under the pseudonym Kurban Saïd.

A new phenomenon of authentic Chinese rap has taken the internet by storm. But behind the unprecedented gains in popularity, there is a struggle for freedom of speech. Rappers are trying to figure out what they still can and cannot do after new censorship is announced.

Visitors to the temples of modern art in global cities will be familiar with the white cube gallery space. But when one arises in the middle of a Congolese palm oil plantation, the effect is deeply disorienting. Furthermore, it draws attention to the often overlooked ties between colonialism and the art world, for example, through the multinationals that now proudly sponsor these Western museums. This Congolese arts center is part of artist Renzo Martens’s unorthodox plan to jump-start the local economy. Former workers at the plantation make sculptures that are reproduced in chocolate, and then exhibited in New York. The plantation workers, most of whom earn a dollar or less a day, use the profits from this successful exhibition to buy back the land confiscated from them by Unilever.

The extraordinary story of a young reporter in war-torn Kobanî.

Documentary about the last four seasons on the farm run by the director's parents. The film starts on 1 January 1992, at 6 am and ends in a misty landscape at the end of that year. Het is een schone dag geweest (It's been a beautiful day) shows the end of a farm venture for which no successor has been found, but also the disappearance of a traditional way of life. Modern agriculture is ruled by new regulations, largely made in Brussels. Lonely work on a noisy machine replaces hard but communal work on the land. In a disciplined style, the film shows the disappearance of a traditional lifestyle in part of Holland. Het is een schone dag geweest was ïn 2007 admitted to the "Canon van de Nederlandse Film", a list of the most important Dutch films. (filmcommission.nl)

If Sidik manages to spot a leopard in his beloved mountains of Kurdistan, the area can be declared a protected nature reserve. Will that finally bring peace?

When he sees members of the audience crying while he’s performing his dance, Xavi is a bit disappointed. If they’re crying because they’re moved by his dancing as an art form, that’s fine. But if it’s out of pity because he’s in a wheelchair, they can “fuck off.” A similar attitude can be detected in Jos de Putter and Clara van Gool’s portrait of the Catalan dance collective Liant la Troca, whose members include people with a physical disability. One by one, they spotlight some of these intriguing personalities.

During the International Film Festival Rotterdam in 2002, Leo Hannewijk (festival director Film by the Sea) approached filmmaker and producer Digna Sinke with the idea of asking several film makers to make short films based on poems about the province of Zeeland. It would offer an opportunity to investigate the limits of the medium film and, just like poetry, not to focus on the story but to tackle universal and grander themes through mood and form. In the end, eight short films were realized, by eight different filmmakers. The films are connected by intermezzi, aerial shots of the Zeeland coasts. Poems of the Sea is a stirring and surprising portrayal of Zeeland. Filled with desires and passion.