Agenda

Observational documentary following newcomers in the Netherlands as they navigate their path through the integration process. The challenges of civic integration become tangible, and the audience is confronted with a mirror: a system that is efficient and client-focused in design, yet increasingly disconnected from human reality. Since the new Civic Integration Act came into effect...

When porn has become the norm, intimacy is the new taboo. Introverted teenager Alec only experiences intimacy through the lens working for his father’s pornography business. When a classmate challenges him to embrace real connection, he’s forced to step out from behind the camera. Alec, a soft-spoken, introverted teenager, has always viewed life through the...

Together with The Hague pop venue PAARD, we are launching the film series Films that Make Noise. A series of high-profile protest films in which the connection between music and social change takes center stage. For this edition of Films that make Noise, we are screening the punk films Alles Moet Beter and Tra Fasi,...

Soviet Union, 1937. Thousands of letters from detainees falsely accused by the regime are burned in a prison cell. Against all odds, one reaches its destination: the newly appointed local prosecutor Alexander Kornev. What follows is a haunting historical drama about the workings of evil bureaucracy in Stalin’s Russia.   Kornev is an idealistic young...

With Movies that Matter On Tour, we bring impactful films to sixteen cinemas throughout the Netherlands. In May, we are showing the documentary Soldier’s Bones. The screenings will be accompanied by talks, reflections, and discussion programmes organised by the local Movies that Matter On Tour groups. See all screening dates About the Film In 1971, young...

In poverty-stricken 1990s Iraq, young Lamia is selected to prepare a cake for the President’s birthday. Because basic ingredients are hard to find, Lamia goes on a journey in search of eggs, flour and sugar. It becomes a tender, tragicomic odyssey, offering a child-eye’s view of life under authoritarianism.   Writer-director Hasan Hadi’s affecting debut...

Afghan artist-filmmaker Dawood Hilmandi returns home from Amsterdam after suffering a great loss to restore his relationship with his aging, authoritarian father. But has the gap between father and son grown too wide to bridge? Afghan artist-filmmaker Dawood Hilmandi is called paikar – the Persian word for ‘war’ or ‘warrior’ – by his family. His...

Sharp satire by Iranian director Ali Asgari about the slow grind of censorship and the absurdity of repression. Bahram is a 40-year-old filmmaker whose films have all been banned by the Ministry of Culture. When his latest work is once again denied permission, he’s pushed to the edge of defiance. Bahram has spent his entire...

At an all-boys water polo camp, socially anxious 12-year-old Ben is pulled into a cruel tradition targeting an outcast with an illness they call ‘The Plague’. But as the lines between game and reality blur, Ben fears the joke might be hiding something real. Blending shades of body horror and psychodrama, writer/director Charlie Polinger instinctively...

Egyptian political thriller about a famous actor who is forced to make a propaganda film for the autocratic regime. George Fahmy is a big film star, commissioned to play Egyptian President El-Sisi. He reluctantly accepts – and then begins an affair with the wife of the general overseeing the film. George Fahmy (Fares Fares) is...

Fatima, 17, the youngest of three daughters, treads carefully as she searches for her own path, grappling with emerging desires, her attraction to women, and her loyalty to her caring French-Algerian family. It is springtime, and Fatima (played by non-professional newcomer Nadia Melliti) is in her final year of secondary school. She has a warm...