Surprising Amsterdam

In 1917, French artist Marcel Duchamp declared everyday objects as art. A provocative act that sparked a heated, still topical discussion around the question: what is art? Since then, that question has been asked time and time again. To the artist and to the viewer. If everything is possible and everything is allowed, how do you remember what art is? Director Ditteke Mensink spent two years at De Ateliers: the breeding ground for top talent in the visual arts. Her stay ended in a harsh confrontation with herself, the young artists and modern visual arts.

Artist Chris Berens finds his inspiration in his own magical inner world. The animals and creatures that play a major role in his imagination also populate the landscapes he creates with his special painting technique. It results in scenes that are both enchanting and ominous.

We get up, go to work, eat and go to bed. Is our life about daily rituals or is there a deeper, more inscrutable meaning of life? Kjeld lives surrounded by nature in his small house and soon becomes a father. He seeks satisfaction in the simplicity of life in nature. Anna is a young artist looking for answers in her poetry and music. A philosophical documentary essay in which the search for the core of life is central. How should we live if there are no answers anywhere?

Kim and Bob have been inseparable since childhood. Does puberty end their friendship?

Virgin School follows the emotional and physical journey of 26-year-old virgin James as he embarks on a unique four-month course for sexually inexperienced men in Amsterdam

This Traveltalks entry looks at the sights, sounds, people, and art masterpieces in the capital of the Netherlands.

In Amsterdam-Zuidoost, residents built vegetable gardens in their deserted, dangerous inner garden. While gardening, they not only tackle their own problems, but also those of the neighborhood. In Venserpolder, a neighborhood in Amsterdam-Zuidoost, residential block 10 is built around a courtyard. For years, that garden has been considered too dangerous because of criminal activities and it is deserted. Until the residents, mostly single mothers, decide to create vegetable gardens. Meli, Talita, Gilma and Maureen rarely came out before and hardly knew of the other's existence. Now they meet in the garden.

Documentary about four maffia-like friends based in Amsterdam.

Bas Jan Ader rides his bike into a canal in Amsterdam.

Johan van der Keuken went against the grain in 1980: from Amsterdam (on April 30 with the coronation riots and squatting actions) via Paris, southern France and Italy to Egypt. He made his personal travelogue in three parts for VPRO television. Later, he fused the three parts into one long movie.

A documentary about three men in the criminal environment of Amsterdam as they deal with unemployment, probation, and divorce.

Nigella returns for a very special Christmas treat when she travels to Amsterdam to enjoy the festive season in the Venice of the North.

Pak Mokum Terug is the name of a group of Amsterdam activists that refuse to accept that the basic right to housing no longer appears to apply. The group’s name means “Take Back Amsterdam,” Mokum being the traditional nickname for a capital city in which today, for more and more people, a home is becoming unaffordable. Against this background, Hotel Mokum reports on the squatting of a dilapidated hotel in the city center, narrated in the voice of a fictitious activist.

21st century legal prostitution through the frank stories of Amsterdam red-light district sex workers at a time when tighter regulation threatens their livelihood.

When filmmaker Mari Soppela took her children and husband to live for a year on a sacred mountain in her native Finland, she was fulfilling a lifelong dream to share the arctic wilderness of her childhood with her family. But when years later her children turn the camera onto her, she is forced to confront her motivation for filming their lives in this searching and searingly honest cinematic exploration of identity, belonging and motherhood. Filmed over the course of 27 years, Mother Land challenges us all to examine the landscapes we carry within us and the narratives we create to make sense of our lives.

1964-1968 Trams in Amsterdam, Rotterdam en Den Haag

400km à pied jusqu'à Amsterdam (le plus gros défi de ma vie)

A feature-length tour of Amsterdam's thriving jazz scene.

Rhythmic composition of moving photographs of cyclists in Amsterdam, ‘set’ to Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons.

A worn-out floor, the hole underneath, a political activist, and the Ouled Sbita tribe are the protagonists in this political satire. For 23 years, the director’s chair at an international art institute scratched the wooden floor. This 102cm x 120cm floor section is cut out and sent to an expropriated piece of land in Morocco. In The Hole’s Journey, Ghita Skali uses sharp wit, personal stories and playful editing to touch on specific power dynamics and freedom of choice.