NEW NEIGHBOURS
The inhabitants of a small, isolated Frisian village open up to social change and welcome a large Syrian family into their community. The expectations of the village and those of the family turn out to be at odds. After a year of trying, the family decides to move to a bigger city, but the two eldest sons want to stay. Will they manage to become happy in the village? A world history unfolds at village level.
YSBRAND NEEDS TO FLY
At first glance, the life of Ysbrand Galama (33) looks like that of a traditional Frisian farmer. Unmarried, born and raised on a dairy farm - which he will take over from his parents as the generations before him did. Predictable, orderly. But secondarily, Ysbrand's love and curiosity for meadow birds turns out to put him in an unlimited, global perspective. In what way can we see Ysbrand's sport, Frisian fierljeppen or pole vaulting? Is it an affirmation of traditional life - or can we see his great final jump, which he is training for, as a metaphor for a leap into another dimension? Can we see his fight against gravity as his fight for who he is - his identity - and as he climbs the pole vault, does he get closer to the birds?
SWISS COAST
Fishing couple Jan and Barbara Geertsema, amid the crushing beauty of nature on the border of land and sea, cling to traditional coastal fishing in the big world of fishing quotas. Moving with the rhythms of nature, with the commercial market forces and encroaching governmental regulatory zeal, or against the current? Their seemingly solitary struggle for subsistence and freedom turns out to be in a larger European context.
NEW NEIGHBOURS regie • Pau Ortiz
YSBRAND NEEDS TO FLY regie • Balazs Simonyi
SWISS COAST • Andrea Pellerani
(financial) partners: Prins Bernard Cultuur Fonds, Vluchtelingenwerk Nederland, Waddenacademie, Noordelijk Film Festival, Omrop Fryslân, Leeuwarden - European capital of culture
