NLWave25

Miriam Guttmann’s new film explores how a tragic and unnecessary death sparked a national reckoning on race, class justice and accountability. Sanda, the son of a Senegalese immigrant and a working-class Belgian mother, died during an elite fraternity initiation ceremony in Leuven, Belgium. “This is not a sensationalized crime story, but a deeply human narrative seen through the eyes of Sanda’s family, friends, and the legal and experts involved in the case, providing a unique, multifaceted perspective,” producer Monique Busman of Tomtit Film tells Business Doc Europe.

“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 tells BDE of Thabi Mooi & Tom Fassaert’s work-in-progress, In Your Shadow. 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.

“We are out to make an eclectic, kaleidoscopic film that positions itself as a documentary, an essay film, a fictitious reconstruction of memories, with several animations to serve as the glue keeping it all together,” Valk tells BDE of his fully funded project, which will be ready for delivery in May 2026. After losing irreplaceable moments stored on a hard disk, filmmaker Robert-Jonathan Koeyers returns with his family members to the locations they visited in 2018 to fill in the collective gaps in their lives and memories.

For most of us, the Moon is the beautiful heavenly body that illuminates the night sky, but for Big Industry it is hot property, a place to be colonised for its assets. “Our film about the Moon turned out to be a mirror for what is happening on Earth,” co-director Luuk Bouwman tells Business Doc Europe. “It digs into bigger themes like power and ownership, trust and distrust, distribution of resources, the commons and the private. That makes it a universal story relevant for international audiences.”

When Jona Honer first visited China, he soon worked out that the easiest way to connect with the young and extremely affluent sub-strata of Chinese society was through their favourite nightclubs. He was also fascinated by the rituals of capitalism, which resembled more a religion in terms of its structure and the social support it offered. “They [the club goers] create their own symbols, maybe without knowing it consciously,” Honer tells BDE. “Every religion has its own symbols. They create their own value system…it’s more than a night out.”

In his new documentary, Tom Fassaert returns to the subject of his family, this time the strained but fascinating relationship between his father Rob and uncle Rene, two men who seem to be polar opposites. “They can’t live without each other and yet when they’re together….” Fassaert sighs as he reflects on the odd couple dynamic between the brothers. “The bittersweet taste - that is what made me make this film.”

The first edition of NLWave kicks off Sept 24, offering a selection of international execs and festival programmers an exclusive first look at the latest cinematic output from the Netherlands. In terms of documentary, eight projects either at early stage or as works-in-progress, will be presented. Additionally, three recently completed feature docs will be screened. Docmakers in the frame include IDFA winners Luuk Bouwman and Tom Fassaert, as well as powerhouse production houses such as Submarine, Baldr Film, 100% and Mint Film Office.