NLWave 26

“Since the full-scale invasion, I have experienced what it’s like when a language becomes contaminated,” says Dutch director Aliona van der Horst of her new film, about a bi-lingual Ukrainian couple living in exile in Berlin, and the strain placed on their 45-year marriage. “Russian has become the language of the former coloniser of Ukraine: the language of Putin, the perpetrators, the murderers.”

“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.”

Fourteen Dutch documentary projects, twelve of which are at advanced stage, will be presented during the second edition of NLWave (September 30 to October 2), an initiative of the Netherlands Film Fund and presented in co-operation with SEE NL. The 2026 showcase comprises a who’s who of top Dutch creative and business talent, and presents a wealth of fascinating stories that span the globe. Simone van den Broek, Head of Documentary and Fiction at the Netherlands Film Fund, guides Business Doc Europe through this year’s selection.

“Kabul, Year Zero is the final film in Aboozar Amini’s Kabul trilogy, following Kabul, City in the Wind and Kabul, Between Prayers. But this time, the perspective shifts radically. The story of Kabul and its wars is told through children,” Chinese-Dutch film producer Jia Zhao (Silk Road Films) tells BDE in Utrecht during the second edition of the Dutch project showcase NLWave. “Their voices form a kind of collective chant - not a political shout - about growing up amid repeated cycles of war.”

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.

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.

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.

“pink & green is difficult to put into one box, and I think that is one of its main strengths,” producer Danielle Guirguis tells Business Doc Europe of Turner Prize nominee Rory Pilgrim’s hybrid doc project, set on the windswept British island of Portland. In the film, two mysterious orbs, one pink, the other green, emerge from the bowels of the earth to instil a greater sense of hope and optimism, both in the film’s troubled protagonists and in the wider community who step forward to offer their support.

“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.”

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.