It is election night. Oedipus is on the verge of a massive victory. The country has not known a leader for many years since Laius' death. The ambitions are great. Oedipus wants to create a future, create a new way of life. He also insists, if elected, that the investigation into the death of his predecessor is reopened. In the meanwhile, in the half-empty campaign headquarters, Oedipus is surprised by his family - mother, wife and children - with a dinner. An old incident is thereby brought up. Gradually, Oedipus discovers that his past is very different from what he has always thought. During his research, the pieces of the puzzle fall together. Oedipus tries to control his fate, but discovers that he has been seeing blind all along.
In Kings of War, director Ivo van Hove focuses on political leadership. The original texts were retranslated by Rob Klinkenberg and then thoroughly adapted: the Hundred Years' War between England and France, and the Rose Wars between the houses of Lancaster and York for the English throne, which are emphatically present as a historical context in the original pieces, were referred to the background in the adaptation in order to accommodate a varied portrait of successive kings. As leaders in times of political instability and war, they show remarkable affinities with world leaders today.
An assistant prosecutor zealously pursues a conviction in the case of a pediatric nurse accused of murdering her patients, but doubt arises when her evidence shows that the infants may have died of natural causes.
The seventeen year old Stach is faced with five impossible assignments he has to complete in order to become king. Things do not go as easily as the boisterous Stach had expected, especially when he is confronted with matters of life and death.
Onno (30) applies for a dream job as curator in Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum. He makes it through to the last round with the arrogant yuppie Alex. The younger and self-assured Alex seems to have a better chance of getting the job and Onno will not tolerate that. A few days before the last interview, he kidnaps his opponent and locks him up in a remote cottage that his girlfriend has just inherited near a railway line. As soon as he gets the job, he releases his victim. Three years later - Onno now lives together and has a son - he is a successful curator at the Rijksmuseum and needs an assistant. While interviewing applicants, he is confronted with Alex, now blind in one eye.
Television registration of the play of the same name that Annie M.G. Schmidt wrote for Toneelgroep Amsterdam. In a side room of a congress building, mother, son and daughter await the arrival of father, who will be honored for his services in the pharmaceutical industry. But father is delayed; the meantime is filled with conversations. The mother turns out to be having a lesbian affair. The play was poorly received.
The lives of Erik Lanshof and five of his closest friends take different paths when the German army invades the Netherlands in 1940: fight and resistance, fear and resignation, collaboration and high treason.