Roos van Ees

This VPRO's ‘summer classic’ is based on an equally simple and refreshing idea that originated in 1988: When during the summer most of the channels are showing reruns, ask interesting people people to curate their ‘favorite television evening’ and let them clarify the fragments in a long-form interview/conversation. The programme was first aired in 1988. Each episode takes up an entire Sunday evening, lasting typically three hours. It consists of an in-depth studio interview with a notable Dutch, Belgian or other Dutch-speaking foreigner, interspersed with cinema or television footage selected by the guest, which is subsequently discussed. Guests include writers, scientists, television personalities, politicians or business people.

In 1969 Amsterdam, two idealistic roommates fall for the same free-spirited young woman, pulling them into a heady world of hippie dreams, artistic rebellion, and emotional turmoil that tests their friendship and the ideals of free love.

Freek is a 49-year-old advertising executive and media figure. He appears to have it all: he has won many awards in his field, has a great wife Iris and a ten year old adopted son Werner. Iris is 39 and a strong partner, professionally and personally. She's beautiful, smart and a workaholic. Freek is known in the advertising world as a charmer and womanizer. He meets a dazzling young woman, the 24-year-old Alberta, whom he falls for. She persuades him to go to the place she shares a name with; Alberta, in the Canadian Rockies. The plan is to escape life in the Netherlands and paint expressionistic landscapes of the Canadian scenery together. Boredom strikes sooner than anticipated and Alberta goes in search of adventure elsewhere, leaving Freek hopeless and alone. Can he handle life on his own?

In Man Made, Sunny tries to find out what society's ideas regarding masculinity entails. Does testosteron define your masculinity? Can men be victims? And do men suffer under these ideas? In the twentieth century, feminists have fought for the freedom of women and subsequently their emancipation. Is now the time for the emancipation of men, are they next to be set free?