Melle van Essen

Two teen track stars discover first love as they train for the biggest relay race of their young lives.

A dark world of well-organised drug crime is hidden behind the calm life of Brabant. Jara and Rens both come to discover that when upon return to their birth province after a long time. She wants to clear the name of her father, he wants to distance himself from his criminal family - but they both get terribly entangled in the web of the upper and underworld, whose boundaries are becoming increasingly blurred.

Fifty years after being dance partners in their twenties, two pensioners find themselves torn between romance and their disapproving families when they reconnect and fall head over heels in love.

Set in the remote winter landscape of Norway, Roos visits her mother there yearly, but this time it’s different: she brings bad news. However, old pain and numerous reproaches keep Roos from sharing anything with her mother. Aided by her half-brother and her old flame, the two women reconcile and Roos is able to make her next and inescapable step.

From the filmmaker's perspective, we follow the process of a possible feature film about a photographer (Lea) tasked with capturing the energy transition in Amsterdam's harbor area. This brings up a flood of memories and associations. What do you do with what hasn't gone well in your life? How well can you know someone dear to you? Filmmaker and character turn out to coincide more and more during the process.

To inform each personally about her impending death, Mies summons her three daughters home. The three half-sisters April, May and June, each of whom has a different father, start to question their lives: "Where are we at in life? What do we still have in common? What will happen to our autistic brother Jan?"

Lin, a long-distance swimmer, is training for a cross-channel swim when she encounters Henri, a deep-sea welder, who, like her, thrives on danger. Drawing each other deep into an intense love affair, they forget that lovers too can drown.

Seven friends meet up for dinner and decide to play a revealing game. During the evening deep personal secrets will surface and threaten their relationships.

Romy’s mother has to work a lot. That’s why Romy goes to her grandmother every day after school. Grandma Stine is very busy working in her hairdressing salon, and is very strict. But everything changes when Romy discovers a totally different side to her grandmother.

Shishmaref is a community of about 600 people, located on an island just off the west coast of Alaska. The effects of global warming threaten the very existence of these people- so much that the entire population needs to be relocated off the island within 10 years. They have become the first tangible victims of the worldwide climate changes. The project exists of several components; exhibition, book, film, website, and educational program. In the documentary Jan Louter depicts the impending end of the traditional lifestyle on the island of Shishmaref trough the lives of three Inupiat families. Despite the alarming situation, the film has not become a political manifesto. The Last Days of Shishmaref is a moving film about identity, transience, mortality, and the clash between different eras and cultures.

Carefully composed portrait of prominent modern composer Elliott Carter (1908-1912). Scheffer depicts both the person and the development in his music and the musical tradition it grew out of, as well as the time in which the American Carter grew up. The result: historical images of the city of New York, old film footage, cinematographic finds to illustrate the music and statements by conspicuous fellow-composers and musicians, including Pierre Boulez and Daniel Barenboim.

A light grey room. A slender woman of 50 and a 12 year old boy. Joined together like the links of a chain. Changing positions at a constant rate. One flowing movement. Never losing touch with each other. A game played by a mother and her child. A kind of tango. Sound of feet. Breathing. Faint smiles. Until suddenly the woman's hands let go of each other.

From a historic genocide trial to the overthrow of a president, the sweeping story of mounting resistance played out in Guatemala’s recent history is told through the actions and perspectives of the majority indigenous Mayan population, who now stand poised to reimagine their society.

Director Scheffer registered a performance of the Tea Opera by Chinese composer Tan Dun (who won an Oscar in 2001 with his score for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon). Scheffer interlaces the images with interviews with Dun, stage director Pierre Audi and librettist Xu Ying, about the opera and the role tea and oriental philosophy play in this work. Using monochrome, sometimes abstract images (in yellow, blue, red and green), close-ups of plants and flowers and images of the Chinese nature and people (sometimes accelerated or decelerated, sometimes in black-and-white), he mirrors the stylised opera performance and Dun's reflective music.

A sturdy flight attendant has to deliver a child in mid-air and gets involved in a confusing mother/lover relationship with a boy who's living under the streets of Bucharest.

A retired police detective sets out to find his missing granddaughter.

A story of destinies joined by Guatemala's past, and how a documentary film intertwined with a nation's turbulent history emerges as an active player in the present.

The film tells the tale of Iala, whose authority over his two sons, Raul and Bedan, is shaken. Raul has left to study in a seminary in the big city, where unknown to anyone, he has joined the liberation movement. Meanwhile, younger son, Bedan is rebelling against every possible tradition, even eyeing his father's young bride-to-be.

When successful banker Thomas attends his father’s funeral, he meets his left-wing activist brother Arne again after many years. He makes an effort to get close to Arne and invites him to a prestigious conference on sustainable banking, but Arne uses the conference to make a political statement that has fatal consequences. Thomas finds himself fighting for his own career and for Arne’s life, but especially to regain his brother’s respect.

An elegiac documentary following virtuosic clarinettist and composer Kinan Azmeh, a Damascus-born musician living in exile, as he attempts to find meaning and purpose after the outbreak of war in Syria. A profound exploration of the role art can play in forging identity and community.