How do Dutch actors in the post-#MeToo era look back at intimate scenes and what do they think about the arrival of the intimacy coordinator? From her experience as an actress and filmmaker, Tamar van den Dop talks to several past and present icons.
Nicoline, a criminal psychologist, begins work at a prison where one of her new cases, Idris — an apparently reformed sex offender — is preparing for release after five years of confinement. Despite her professional misgivings, she becomes infatuated with her charismatic, manipulative patient.
Konraad, 83, has written a letter to his relatives saying he wants to die. Maria, Konraad's daughter and only child, refuses to discuss her fathers wish. Instead, she wants to move him to a flat for elderly people. Her two grown daughters Sabine and Eva have problems of their own. Sabine has a troubled marriage and her eldest daughter Haas is too wise for her age. Eva is in therapy, recovering from an abortion. Ernst, Marias husband, is the only one who takes an interest. He decides to help Konraad realize his last wish. In doing so, he crosses his wife and increases the already existing distance between them.
Ruben is a lone and unbalanced young man who lost his sight in childhood. Marie is an albino woman of temperate look and with a lot of insecurities. She has a beautiful voice and, along with Ruben, shares a mutual love for books and tales. Ruben's mother hires her as a reader to read her son books orally. While they live in a mansion, between these two lonely souls sparks love, but will love still be blind if the man recovers from his blindness?
In the TV film Polonaise, traffic jams have grown into a phenomenon in which traffic jam call girls, hairdressers and photographers enliven the endless delays. The film follows a number of people in a jam on the A5. The central character is a Pole in an expensive Saab Convertible, who is wanted by the police. A red Panda carries the heavily pregnant Hilde and her cynical sister. Hilde is worried because she has not seen her friend anymore after a quarrel. In an old Saab, a young couple is bickering. She is a `yuppie cunt' who stakes her marriage for a parking licence and is tired of her husband smoking dope. Charlie the music promoter is driving his son's car. He likes traffic jams, because they allow him to settle his deals undisturbed and meet his secret love, the traffic jam call girl Nena. While the characters are confronted with each other and themselves more and more, tension rises to a peak. A radio pirate connects the story lines with his chatter.
The Detour is about a young woman travelling through Europe in search of herself and the truth of life. It is based on meetings between goatherd Joanna and Austrian author and playwright Thomas Bernhard. Joanna is lost after her boyfriend dumps her at a Women's Relief Centre in Rotterdam. She works in a library and visits the theatre, where she first sees a play by Thomas Bernhard. Bernhard's philosophy permeates Joanna's thoughts. When Camille invites her to visit the French Pyrenees, she accepts. On the way, she decides to visit Bernhard in Austria. She attempts to start a relationship with him and thereby finds herself.
A young boy develops a passion for archeology and tries to unravel the truth about his ancestry.
After losing sight of each other for 25 years, the paths of three childhood friends cross paths. It concerns successful conductor Victor Slingeland, successful writer Sander Vastenhout and general practitioner Bert Duprez. Slingeland enjoys a reputation as a womanizer. This intrigues Vastenhout who, as is often the case with authors, is without inspiration. Vastenhout sees the unraveling of Slingeland's complex personality as possible new material for a novel. With the help of Dr. Duprez, Vastenhout tries to find out about Slingeland's secret by imitating his behavior and thus challenging him.
Young Barend is worried about the safety of the sailing vessel he is on. The owner is an unscrupulous and stingy man who skimps on repairs and Barend becomes aware of this. Inevitably there is drama and tragedy. The film is set in an early 20th century Dutch fishing village with local period costume and colour.