A schoolteacher from Odessa is locked up in a psychiatric hospital from 1980 until 1988 for refusing to collaborate for the KGB. Documentary about the abuse of psychiatry for political purposes in the Soviet Union.

The Lady with the white hat

The incredible friendship between Semyon Gluzman, a psychiatrist and former dissident, and General Volodymyr Prystayko, the deputy director of the Ukrainian Security Service, who was in charge of keeping Gluzman's files in the KGB archives.

The Dissident and the KGB General

NA DE LENTE VAN '68 is a film about falling in love across a political, cultural and geographic divide. It tells of Simon, a Dutch communist student in Moscow, who meets and marries the Russian Zoya in the spring of 1968. Simon returns to the Netherlands, expecting his wife to follow shortly afterwards when her exit visa is granted. Her application however is refused over and over again. Months pass and then years. A child is born to Zoya in Moscow: director Aliona van der Horst relates her parents' struggle in this tender account of family history caught up in international politics. In the numerous love-letters he wrote to his beloved Zoya feelings of helplessness are expressed: 'Our happiness depends on how the political wind blows'. Van der Horst uses these letters as a guideline through the film. To tell her parents' story, Van der Horst weaves together archival footage, home movies and photographs with contemporary interviews. The film constructs a rich visual fabric evoking memories passions and regrets.

Na de lente van '68

Two Dutch filmmakers travel to the Iranian city of Bam to chronicle the aftermath of a December 2006 earthquake that claimed 43,000 lives and left 60,000 homeless. Survivors reflect on the catastrophe in voice-over narration that's accompanied by images of a wrecked metropolis fighting to pull itself back together. The gripping documentary received its North American premiere at the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival.

Voices of Bam

Focuses on the people who work in Russia's renowned museum, the Hermitage, the former palace of Catherine the Great.

The Hermitage Dwellers

Russian Poet Boris Ryzhy was handsome, talented and famous. So why did he end his own life at the age of 26? A quest to find the answer takes the filmmaker to the notorious neighbourhood in the cold industrial city of Yekaterinenburg where Boris grew up...

Boris Ryzhy

As a film about fertility, Water Children is an ode to womanhood and the body  Filmmaker Aliona van der Horst followed the trail of the unconventional Dutch-Japanese pianist and artist Tomoko Mukaiyama who made a huge work of art on the theme of womanhood and fertility. She created a cathedral-like space out of twelve thousand white silk dresses in which visitors, as in a ritual, roamed around and fell silent. And where people confessed intimate details about children who were or were not born, about sexuality and life-choices. This resulted in a majestic epic about motherhood, miscarriages and menopause. In a visual and poetic way, the film penetrates into what is probably still one of the greatest of taboos, menstruation, and, as a consequence, touches upon universal themes around life and death.

Water Children

15 attempts to make a film, to misunderstand an artist or to look at the world without preconceptions.

15 Attempts

Four people,in their struggle to improve the world during Occupy Amsterdam. The downfall of the encampment is part of their search for ways to bring about change. But why don't we want to hear their message?