NLWave 26

After his debut Four Journeys, the opening film of IDFA 2021, Chinese filmmaker Louis Hothothot again turned his camera inward, his focus once more on his family following the death of his father in 2022. “The central question was how to take care of my mother who is weak, and how to collaborate with my sister who has had a bad relationship with me for a long time,” Hothothot described the work-in-progress to the professional audience in Utrecht. “And underneath, it is about the bigger picture about the women's condition in China.”

“Paradise Morbid is a horror-hybrid documentary that focuses on what happens when you get lost in drug use,” director David-Jan Bronsgeest tells BDE of his NLWave feature doc presentation. The film centres on Frank van der Meer (63), once a king of Amsterdam’s Red Light district, “who has died many times, yet refuses to stay buried.” Bronsgeest further underlines his intentions: “With Paradise Morbid, I want to use the language of horror to explore reality.”

“It's a film made together with people, by people, at opposite ends of the global value chain,” Dutch producer Lea Fels told the professional audience at NLWave of the new project The Dawn of the Post Plantation, co-directed by Congolese artist and activist Ce'dart Tamasala together with maverick Dutch filmmaker Renzo Martens. “The ones who work the plantation for almost nothing and the ones who make critical art in museums that were historically funded by the wealth taken from those same plantations. And that's where the real friction lies.”

“In Your Shadow is vital because it makes visible something that exists in so many families and societies: the silence that grows around trauma,” Dutch producer Renko Douze (Een van de jongens) tells BDE of Thabi Mooi & Tom Fassaert’s work-in-progress In Your Shadow, presented at NLWave26. In the feature doc, after thirty years of silence, filmmaker Thabi takes her father on a journey to confront his past as a soldier in the South African liberation struggle.

The second edition of NLWave, the Utrecht-based two-day showcase of new Dutch film content, came to a close October 2 following the presentation of 35 early stage projects and works in progress. Fifteen of these were documentaries, some of which seem destined for selection at festivals before the end of 2026, into early 2027. The event attracted 60 industry toppers from the sales, distribution and festival sectors.

After their 2022 Berlinale Documentary Award-winning Myanmar Diaries, the Myanmar Film Collective returns with their hybrid work What Happened to My Country, What Happened to Me? With most members of the Collective now living in exile in Germany, Sweden and Thailand, the film is both a testimony of Myanmar’s continuing tragedy and an imaginative reflection on loss, displacement and the enduring search for home. “This is cinematic storytelling, patiently and carefully framed cinema,” producer Corinne van Egeraat (ZINDOC) and DOP/Editor Petr Lom tell BDE.

Indonesia-based Dutch actor Hans de Kraker has long been the go-to face of white colonial villainy in Indonesian films. But when he receives a suitcase of old family belongings from his sister, Hans uncovers a highly unnerving truth - his late father had committed terrible atrocities during his service in Indonesia. “In its own unique and highly visual way, Penjajah fits seamlessly into the current decolonisation debate by revealing different perspectives on a controversial chapter in European history,” Esther van Driesum of Dutch production company BIND tells BDE.

NLWave returns September 30 to October 2 2026 with a curated selection of upcoming documentaries from the Netherlands, as well as feature films and animation. Following the successful first edition of the Dutch film showcase in 2025, first doc selections for this year’s roll-out include new projects by Renzo Martens, Aliona van der Horst, Suzanne Raes and Menno Otten. “Each of these filmmakers brings a distinct voice and a strong track record, reflecting the depth and ambition of this year’s line-up,” organisers write.

Is there a more famous Dutch export than Vincent van Gogh? The Impressionist painter and his masterworks were ignored during his short, feverish life, and he died in total obscurity. Which is where he may have remained, had his visionary sister-in-law Johanna van Gogh-Bonger not recognised his genius, and vowed to proclaim it to the world. BDE canvasses Dutch production company 100%’s Sandra Bolz about the new feature doc which tells Johanna’s hitherto untold story.

The second edition of NLWave (30 Sept to Oct 2), the international showcase presenting upcoming Dutch features, documentaries and animation, is set to launch NxtWave, comprising four shorts by rising Dutch filmmaking talent. These include the multi award-winning How to Catch a Butterfly by Kiriko Mechanicus, and Nina Broers’ Student Academy Award-winning Where is my Sex Drive.