Good Bad Girl

The Cage

Parents squabbling over a sick bird that was brought in by their son Alex.

J.A.C.E.

Twice-orphaned Jace, a seven-year-old Albanian of Greek origin, witnesses a massacre that wipes out his entire foster family in Argyrokastron, and then falls in the hands of a bunch of ruthless gangsters who "export" children abroad for various profitable reasons (ranging from beggary to organ trade). Jace ends up in Athens, Greece, begging at street corners, exploring the secret horrors of brutal institutions for young offenders or, much later, serving obscure patrons, in an underworld where violent loss seems to be his only destiny. The movie follows Jace's inverted Odyssey in a dark universe of abuse, murder and fear, as he desperately (and silently) seeks for a "family" of his own or, at least, for a sense of belonging

Young Wrestlers

“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.

Belonging

Zeki is a freerunner whose life is turned upside down when his father, the widower Mahir, decides to move from Rotterdam to Istanbul. While Mahir goes out to work, Zeki has to spend the summer holidays inside the posh gated community where they live. Escaping over the wall, Zeki befriends Kemal and other street kids, who are pickpockets. Trying to belong, he conceals how he lives in the gated community. As Kemal and Zeki get closer by the day, Kemal's best friend becomes jealous…

Het beloofde land

In this documentary, a filmmaker travels back to his native soil. The personal film deconstructs the caricature of the former, all-Dutch fishing village of Bunschoten-Spakenburg and at the same time illustrates in which ways this secluded community influences the identity of modern youngsters.