Hedy Wiegner

The tropical plant Divina Gloria comes to fruition once every hundred years. For the duration of only one night she shows her exuberant beauty. Then she dies. In this bittersweet comedy we follow a number of people in the Hortus Botanicus, who witness this short-lived bloom. During the night, they become more and more entranced by this sultry miracle, with an ecstatic outcome.

In a flashback, the film follows the life of Martin Hogeveen. He leads a life that leaves nothing to be desired: a luxurious apartment, a beautiful young girlfriend and a successful job as an independent municipal policy advisor, whose secondary task it is to combat fraud. His investigations are amply rewarded when he brings to light an extensive building industry fraud. As a result of his report, the director of the local authority is fired and Hogeveen takes over his post. In the meantime, Martin is stalked in his private life by an impetuous student who even harasses his girlfriend. Martin gets entangled in a situation involving murder and blackmail, and eventually makes an unexpected discovery. Zinloos is based on René Appel's novel Zinloos geweld.

From different time perspectives, Sloophamer tells the story of 55-year-old Dirk, who one Friday afternoon returns to his house in the pleasant street where he leads a happy life. He is proud of the house he has converted into a snug little palace with his own hands. But then, suddenly, a wrecker's ball knocks a gaping hole into the outside wall. Dirk's wife quickly explains that the house is going to be demolished, but the bull-headed Dirk refuses to vacate the place. Still, the overseer of the demolition team wants to finish the job before the weekend. To 'smoke out' the couple, he makes their situation increasingly dire. Water, gas and electricity are cut off and the anti-riot squad is even on standby. While Dirk is cheered as a hero by sympathisers, the overseer decides to go upstairs and terminate the predicament. There, he finds a different man than he had imagined. It slowly becomes clear that Dirk is out of touch with reality.

The actor Lucas Bron performs the play King Lear by William Shakespeare for the pupils of his son Patja. After the show, Patja has already got home when he is warned that his father's house is on fire. He rushes to the fateful spot. The fire brigade has already arrived and is unable to say whether his father is still in the house. Patja desperately runs into the burning house and finds his father unconscious on the kitchen floor. But Lucas' spirit is in the theatre. In a magic train of thought, just before he dies, Lucas directs and acts, assisted by his son, high points and low from his eventful life in the theatre, but also outside. Theatre and reality become intertwined. It slowly becomes clear that Lucas still has something to tell his son.

The film is based on the popular Dutch childrens book by Chris van Abkoude. In a Dutch port in 1921 lives a 10-year-old orphan boy known to everyone simply as Little Crumb. His poverty-stricken mother Lize van Dien filled with shame was forced to turn him over to Mrs. Koster soon after he was born. Foster mother Mrs. Koster, who has cared for him since he was a baby, is very poor too, unable to support him by herself and proves to be a cruel taskmaster who insists Crumb bring her money before shell feed him. Somehow he must earn his keep out on the streets and can only go home after he has earned enough money. Crumb becomes an urchin stealing from the streets barrows and the shops to stay alive, sleeping in churches or huddled in doorways. Sometimes he has to run off from the police and he has earned the enmity of the most grownups around him.

A successful vascular surgeon is suddenly confronted with a blood phobia, making it impossible for him to exercise his job in the hospital. He moves from the capital to the countryside to work as the GP of a village where he only knows his aunt. His predecessor was well liked, so his new community is less than welcoming. The empathic capabilities of the doctor leaves much to be desired, making it even harder for him to win his place in the close-knit community.

Former Amsterdam police detective Floris Wolfs has been transferred to the police department of the south-Dutch country town Maastricht. His metropolitan experience nicely complements the local expertise of his new country colleagues, who know the folks. Slowly he fits in, while solving countless crimes together with his female partner Eva van Dongen.