Als je bang bent voor de monsters onder je bed en probeert moedig genoeg te zijn om ze onder ogen te komen, kun je maar beter een verhaal verzinnen. Voor Harriet en haar drie oudere broers betekende dit een magische kindertijd op Cumnor Place, een huis vol betoverde tuinen, sprookjes en nachtmerries.

Nu, jaren later, zijn ze volwassen en zonder ouders. De broers en zus komen samen om het ouderlijk huis leeg te halen, zodat het verkocht kan worden. Terwijl ze door de overvolle kamers en uitpuilende zolders struinen, worden ze geconfronteerd met de erfenis van hun veeleisende en excentrieke ouders. Met iedere doos en elk voorwerp dat ze tegenkomen, worden herinneringen opgerakeld aan een onorthodoxe en soms pijnlijke opvoeding.

Een ontroerende en scherpzinnige film over familiebanden, verlies, en de zoektocht naar betekenis in een huis vol verhalen.

16 februari 1961: Jazzmuzikanten Abbey Lincoln en Max Roach bestormen de VN-Veiligheidsraad om te protesteren tegen de moord op Patrice Lumumba, de eerste democratisch verkozen premier van Congo. Het is een periode van enorme politieke omwentelingen, waarin zestien nieuwe onafhankelijke Afrikaanse landen worden toegelaten tot de VN, wat de machtsbalans verschuift van de koloniale Westerse machten. Terwijl Sovjetleider Nikita Chroesjtsjov zijn frustratie letterlijk van zich af slaat door met zijn schoen op tafel te bonken, proberen de VS via jazzmuziek de aandacht af te leiden van hun betrokkenheid bij de door de CIA gesteunde staatsgreep in Congo.

Met legendes als Louis Armstrong, Nina Simone en Duke Ellington sturen de Amerikanen een culturele boodschap naar Afrika, terwijl deze artiesten zelf worstelen met een pijnlijk dilemma: hoe kunnen ze een land vertegenwoordigen waar rassenscheiding nog altijd de norm is?

In Soundtrack to a Coup d’État combineert regisseur Johan Grimonprez de opzwepende energie van jazz met een scherp politiek verhaal. De documentaire legt niet alleen de moord op Lumumba bloot en de rol van Belgische en Amerikaanse overheden, maar schetst ook een pijnlijk en gedetailleerd beeld van kolonialisme, racisme en de strijd om Congolese grondstoffen.

De film bruist van de energie, met een montage die net zo jazzy is als de soundtrack. Dit is meer dan een geschiedenisles: het is een krachtige reflectie op macht, kunst en verzet. Met de Special Jury Award op Sundance en een zegetocht langs filmfestivals wereldwijd is Soundtrack to a Coup d’État een absolute must-see.

Een levendig portret van Joods Amsterdam in het interbellum. Na afloop gaan we in gesprek met filmmaker Sandra Beerends.

In het Amsterdam van tussen de Eerste en Tweede Wereldoorlog was één op de tien Amsterdammers Joods. Een van hen was de zeventienjarige Rusha. Toen haar oudere broer Max emigreerde naar Nederlands-Indië, begon Rusha met het schrijven van brieven over haar leven in Amsterdam. Rusha’s brieven vormen de basis van documentaire Nesjomme, waarin een levendig beeld wordt geschetst van Amsterdam en haar Joodse gemeenschap in het interbellum.

Het aanvankelijke optimisme na de Eerste Wereldoorlog wordt gaandeweg op de proef gesteld door een zware economische depressie en de opkomst van het fascisme. Humor en levenslust, de lechajim, bieden de Joden soelaas in tijden van tegenspoed. Nesjomme gaat niet alleen over het leven van degenen die er niet meer zijn, maar vertelt ook over wat ze hebben achtergelaten: de Joodse ziel van Amsterdam, de nesjomme.

Na de film gaan we in gesprek met regisseur Sandra Beerends.

Nesjomme draait vanaf 2 januari regulier in de filmtheaters.

Eighty years ago Stalin deported the Crimean Tatars out of their home country Crimea. Today, while Russia is a threat to Crimean Tatars again, we commemorate this almost forgotten history with the screening of the documentary 1944. Crimea. Deportation. Before the screening we speak with Crimean Tatars – who had to flee their homeland after the Russian invasion – about past and present.

In 1944 the Soviet regime deported more than 200 000 Crimean Tatars from their homeland to Central Asia and several other regions in USSR. This act of ethnic cleansing is one of the most evil crimes committed by the Soviet regime, yet the topic of Crimea and Crimean Tatars is almost absent in historical and political discussions. 

1944. Crimea. Deportation tells about deportation of Crimean Tatars through real stories and memories of three people who survived the exile accompanied by famine, diseases and inhumane living conditions. On 18th of May 1944 Crimean Tatars were woken up in the middle of the night, packed into freight cars and taken primarily to Central Asia, Siberia, and the Urals. More than 200 000 people were deported, almost half of them died. The stories of deportees are remembered and passed from generation to generation. After the Russian occupation of the Crimean Peninsula in 2014, it became more important than ever to talk about this tragedy. 

Before the screening, we will talk with project manager at the Crimean Institute for Strategic Studies Elmira Ablyalimova-Chiyhoz and Crimean Tatar journalist Elmaz Asan. Why is it so important to keep memories alive? How do memories help to work through collective trauma? And how are the tragedy and trauma of the past connected with the present?

Wanneer een fictieve natuurdocumentaire vertelster (vertolkt door Siân Phillips) haar niersteen onderzoekt, ontluikt een laatste, betoverend verhaal over de vergeten wereld van stenen. Stenen vormen zowel een van de meest fundamentele als veronachtzaamde bouwelementen van onze wereld.

Apple Cider Vinegar is een hypnotiserende essayfilm die niet alleen urgente ecologische kwesties aansnijdt, maar ons ook meeneemt op een fascinerende reis. We ontmoeten Palestijnse steenhouwers, gepassioneerde Britse geologen en de bewoners van een lavalandschap op Fogo, die allen hun eigen unieke relatie met steen onthullen.

A documentary filmmaker dives into the nightlife of the Israeli coastal city of Tel Aviv with a simple, yet thorny, political and deeply loaded question: would you have sex with an Arab?

Would you have sex with an Arab? This is the question that documentary filmmaker Yolande Zauberman asks when she dives into the nightlife of the Israeli city of Tel Aviv. With a small, simple camera she gets up close to people she comes across in clubs, bars and on the street. Again and again, she asks this same question — and it’s not so much about sex or love, but about politics.

In the haze of the night, the answers are raw and frank. While one person immediately rejects the idea of “sleeping with the enemy”, another candidly explains how her night of love with a Palestinian felt like making peace. The words and phrases that keep cropping up in the conversations are striking: “forbidden”, “treason”, and a hesitancy about what the family might think.

And from this one question, others inevitably follow: whether the sex is different, whether love can overcome hate. Made during a period when the Israeli-Palestinian conflict had calmed a bit, this documentary shows in a cutting and provocative but moving way how it affects the lives of individuals at the most intimate level.

As New York drag queen and human rights activist, Amichai has a complex relationship with his prominent Orthodox Jewish family, his religious faith and native country of Israel. In this portrait, filmed over 21 years, he chooses for love and inclusion.

Free-spirited, queer drag queen Amichai Lau-Lavie has set up his own inclusive, art-driven Jewish community in New York. He stands on the shoulders of 38 generations of Jewish Orthodox rabbis who went before him. It’s a huge responsibility. Does remaining true to the traditions of his forefathers mean that he has to do exactly what they (including his uncle, the chief rabbi of Israel) tell him to do? Or are you allowed to adapt those traditions to accommodate new insights and your own moral conscience? Amichai grapples with these kinds of questions throughout the 21 years in which this film closely follows him. He opposes injustice, but pays a price for doing so, encountering overt hatred at protests for peace and human rights.

Amichai talks candidly about the choices he makes. His brother Benny Lau, an Orthodox rabbi, comments on Amichai’s actions. We see criticism, rejection, and pain, but also love and a need to connect. Sabbath Queen jumps back and forth in time to sketch a family history that nearly stopped in Auschwitz. Survival is of immense importance; the question is how.

As a child, filmmaker Inadelso Cossa was shielded from the cruel reality of Mozambique’s civil war. Now he visits the village of his youth, in a penetrating, sensory search for the ghosts of the past.

Thirty-two years after the end of Mozambique’s civil war, in which a million people died, the smell of terror still hangs in the air. As a child, Inadelso Cossa was shielded from the cruel reality. Now he visits the village of his youth with his sound recordist Moises in a sensory search for the ghosts of the past.

Conversations with villagers—including his grandmother, who has dementia, and a former rebel, who drinks to forget—are punctuated by shots of family photos strewn among the leaves or an empty chair against the same background. In a personal voice-over, Cossa reflects on the past, and how it resonates in the present, casting a shadow over the future. The memories he encounters are sometimes faded, fictionalized or distorted, and past and present seem to merge, especially in the dark of the night.In this dream-like atmosphere, Cossa, who previously evoked his country’s violent past in A Memory in Three Acts (2016), now creates a penetrating, poetic ode to a people marked by collective trauma.

This shocking but hopeful report from Ukraine follows the makeshift relief network that has emerged in the middle of wartime violence. The tireless volunteers evacuate residents, support refugees and retrieve bodies from the battlefield.

The war in Ukraine doesn’t stop at the front line. In addition to the lives of tens of thousands of soldiers, the Russian invasion has also claimed the lives of thousands of Ukrainian civilians. And many more have been driven out of their familiar surroundings. The war has destroyed homes, torn families apart and displaced populations. In the midst of this wartime violence, a complex but highly effective relief network has emerged. Support for refugees and displaced persons is ongoing, as is the evacuation of older people living near the front, and the retrieval of the bodies of civilian and military victims.

Dear Beautiful Beloved is a careful and sensitive account of several humanitarian operations dependent entirely on the boundless dedication of volunteers. They receive refugees and guide them to train stations, help distressed seniors feel at home in bare reception shelters and drive through the country to pick up bodies, keep records and safeguard their belongings. Tirelessly they continue their work. There are moments of light even in these dark times, but they never last long.

Artist couple Lynn Cruz and Miguel Coyula deploy a string of secret audio recordings to expose the various forms of control and intimidation that independent artists in Cuba have to suffer. In true Kafkaesque fashion, oppression looms everywhere.

In Cuba, artists have to be recognized by one of the state-sponsored art institutions that ensure their work complies with the state’s vision and policy. Existing as an independent artist means having no income and no rights, and being subjected to various forms of control and intimidation. When independent filmmaker Miguel Coyula casts upcoming actor Lynn Cruz in his new dystopian feature Corazón azul in 2011, it marks the beginning of a professional as well as a romantic bond. It’s also the starting point of this documentary exposing a range of disturbing interactions the artists subsequently had with a wide variety of institutions and individuals—in true Kafkaesque fashion, oppression looms everywhere. Even outside of Cuba, where they are met with similar dogmatism coming from critics of the regime.

In ten elliptic chapters, Chronicles of the Absurd tells this story mostly through audio recordings, often made in secret. Verbatim transcripts, displayed in graphic text underlining the dynamics of the conversations, are paired with head shots, logos, film posters, and paintings by Cuban artist Antonia Eiriz. The austere form reflects the hardships faced by Cuban filmmakers, whose freedom of expression is daily violated by a despotic system.