seriousFilm

Set in a confined world outside time, East of Noon is the fable of prodigy Abdo (19) who uses music to rebel against his elders: showman Shawky (70), an eccentric showman who rules with a mix of performance and fear, and storyteller Jalala (75), who provides relief with stories of the Sea, which no one else has seen. East of Noon is a satire on the inner workings of an ailing autocracy and its inherent vulnerability to youth’s unchained vision of a better world.

Iggy Pop reads and recites Michel Houellebecq’s manifesto. The documentary features real people from Houellebecq’s life with the text based on their life stories.

In FEAST, perpetrators, victims and their spectators become involved in a dramatic reconstruction of the Groningen HIV case. The film tells a story about power and surrender, the reversibility of truth and the desire to come home somewhere.

A football hooligan feels unconditional love for his club. However, being gay, he has to hide his identity in order to survive in this world that is so precious to him.

Ever since she found out her husband Evert was having an affair, Foekje has been living in a hotel she cannot afford. In desperate need of money, she has a plan. The area surrounding her mother’s house is being bought by the government for large sums of money, and Foekje can collect this money by having her mother Nel sign a power of attorney. Unfortunately, Nel is a doomsday prepper who lives in her basement in anticipation of the apocalypse.

A journey at high altitude seen through the eyes of three mysteriously connected hikers. After their coincidental meeting we follow these three on their personal odysseys. The levels of concentration they exhibit in trying to avoid mistakes makes their experience of the overwhelming landscape even more intense.

ZAAD tells the autobiographical story of Dries Meddens. After the death of his mother, the care for Dries' bipolar father falls on his plate. He discovers how crudely and ruthlessly society and psychiatry treat patients. His father eventually dies in solitary confinement. While emptying his parent’s home, Dries discovers an old letter from his grandfather. The man appears to have led a busy, productive life. He is the founder of an internationally renowned seed breeding company and still has time to paint, write diaries and conduct intensive correspondence. Dries finds similarities between his grandfather, his father and himself. Slowly the fear grows that his father's psychiatric illness might be hereditary. Strolling through the family’s film and photo archives, with dramatic and sometimes hilarious finds, Dries tries to find answers. He also consults a psychiatrist. Together the consultations and reviewing of his archival material help Dries look at bipolarity with new eyes.

Branko obsessively trails his brother through Belgrade, trying to fathom his unusual behavior, but realizes along the way that he himself is the strange one, an observer, an apparition. Branko keeps walking and leaves the city behind, passing through landscapes and borders on his way to somewhere else: a place where everyone and everything has a story to share.