In the heart of the Eurasian continent, the ancient center of the world where the Silk Road connected China to Europe, the circus is a deeply rooted cultural phenomenon. This film focuses on two circus artists, whose lifelong friendship under the dictatorship in Uzbekistan is affected by the differing political choices they make under the dictatorshop in Uzbekistan.

For four seasons, lone wolf Eddy van Wessel travels along the Ukrainian front lines. Now that the Netherlands' most awarded war photographer is in the twilight of his successful career, he wants to take the ultimate photo one more time, the image that summarizes the entire conflict and that makes all the struggles, traumas and setbacks he has endured worthwhile.

In How to Meet a Mermaid, the sea becomes a haven for mankind, locked in its struggle with its 'indifferent universe'. Lex, Rebecca, and Miguel each have their own reasons to lay their lives in the hands of the capricious waters. The question remains, however, whether they will find what they so anxiously seek underneath the surface of the waters.

A top executive who can't bear to regard himself as a loser, even after nearly dying in the New York marathon; a woman unable to cope with the loss of her wealthy status after her divorce; and an ambitious financial couple confronted with their unresolved family matters. Every Sunday, in their upper class Bloemendaal church, the cutting sermons of reverend Ad van Nieuwpoort shake their faith and existence to the core. What drives people to be crushed by the weight of their ambitions?

The documentary focuses on the struggles of those who survived the long siege by German forces during World War II (from 8 September 1941 to 27 January 1944). The three million inhabitants of Leningrad (now renamed St Petersburg) suffered extremes of starvation and deprivation.

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.

Is living in the big city as impersonal and lonely as some say? Why is it so hard for New York women to find Mr. Right? This charming documentary follows Annie, Leigh and Laurie, three single women who know what they want, on their quest to find Mr. Right.

More than 50 years after the death of Joseph Stalin, Russia is still divided. Was Stalin a great leader who made Russia into a superpower? Or was he a ruthless dictator, responsible for the deaths of millions of innocent people? Virtually no family has been left untouched by the consequences of Stalin’s regime, and in every corner of the country, victims’ families are struggling with history. Throughout society, Stalin’s popularity is growing, and there is a yearning for a sense of national unity. The Red Soul shows how the past lives on in present-day Russia, and thus makes its mark on the future.

In 1990, the beheaded body of a young woman was found in a Rotterdam canal. The body remained unidentified until 2008, when new DNA techniques revealed that the victim was the American model Melissa Halstead. A joint investigation by the Rotterdam cold case unit and their colleagues in the United Kingdom led to John Sweeney. Sweeney is known to have a tumultuous relationship with Halstead – as evidenced by the many lurid drawings he made during their time together in Amsterdam.

In the heyday of the jute industry, millions of people in Bengal made their living doing this laborious work, which has hardly changed since the industrial revolution. The 100-year-old machinery has been endlessly repaired. State aid kept this sustainable alternative to plastic going, but its future looks bleak.

One day, Dutch film maker van der Horst was given her inheritance: 6 square meters, one sixth of a small, wooden house in the Russian countryside where her mother grew up. It was as if life had handed her a card she felt forced to play. She began a journey into the past, back into the childhood of her Russian mother and her five sisters, all of whom struggled with fear, famine and war in Stalin’s Russia; experiences that left them scarred to their very soul. Aliona’s quest into the lives and fate of her family becomes a loving, poignant, and poetic film with Chekhovian characters. Accompanied by the magical animation of acclaimed Italian artist Simone Massi, unimaginable events in the Soviet past are given an immediate charge. Along with the stories of ordinary people living in the small farmhouse, the film maker tells the tale of Soviet terror, immense bravery and a fear that has never left those four walls.

A documentary about the Dutch band Racoon and their search for a perfect song.

A political essay on the absurd dilemmas presented by asylum policies. In a classroom, migrants’ illusions are dashed against the rocks of European arrogance.

This poetic, erotic film devotes a visual hymn of praise to the female body.

Robert van Gulik (1910-1967) is one of the world’s most read authors from the Netherlands. This diplomat, Sinologist and scholar is mainly known for his detective novels, starring 'Judge Dee'. Filmmaker Rob Rombout follows in his footsteps to discover the author’s legacy - via his diaries, the people he inspired and those who witnessed his extraordinary life.

On the idyllic island of Lipari near Sicily a few traditional swordfish hunters are still active. The days are over where these fishermen were self-evidently succeeded by their sons. On board Nino’s ship, the reigning peace is not what it appears to be. The twelve-man crew that mans the small boat is in complete concentration. They peer at the water surface, looking for their prey. While the diesel engine stamps monotonously, the hours pass and we wait patiently. Then an excited noise erupts from the crow’s nest: a swordfish couple has been spotted! Lipari pays homage to an almost extinct profession.

Man is busy, busy, busy. Until we lie down flat on our backs for a while, in the dunes, in a farmyard, beside a fire engine, in the park or on the banks of a canal. Watching the bank of clouds drifting by or the planes forming persisting contrails in the sky, daydreams, outpourings and contemplations inevitably bubble up. With the sky as a mirror for prostrate man and with the lying man as a mirror for the viewer, this documentary draws a loving portrait of human beings briefly making contact with themselves.

The slogan “Meet the icons of modern art” needs to be scraped off the glass wall of the Stedelijk, Amsterdam’s modern art museum. Because precisely who the icons of modern art are is very much the question. Who gets to decide? And who loses out? In 2019, as director Sarah Vos started shooting her documentary, more than 90 percent of art at the Stedelijk was made by white men. That’s got to change, the museum’s director Rein Wolfs believes. But this is easier said than done—so much becomes clear when Vos follows Wolfs and his team as they strive for greater diversity in the collection, as well as among their staff.

A documentary road movie composed as a pop album. Twelve text snippets by Bob Dylan give just as many fans a basis to elucidate their relationship with the legendary folk singer who then turned 65. This produces a portrait of Dylan followers in the US, which appears to be as divers as the population of this dominant world power. Two schoolgirls that sing to their idol, a therapist that bases his lessons on Dylan, an ultraconservative website administrator, a soldier packing his things for Iraq and some figures that have placed themselves, consciously or not, outside society. Dylan himself is conspicuous by his absence. The tumbling cardboards with text scraps refer to the music video of Subterranean Homesick Blues from DA Pennebaker's Dylan portrait Don't Look Back (1967). It gradually becomes clear that you can always put yourself in the right with Bob, because everybody can distil their own truth from his lyrics, as long as you interpret them creatively.