Imagine 2026: Heads-Ups And Recommendations
Today sees the start of the largest Dutch genre film festival: Imagine. The Amsterdam-based festival is in its 42nd edition already, and this year they have a record 72 feature films and 55 shorts in their programme. From the 29th...
Fund This: A SHINY NEW WORLD Feature Film!
Cabins in the woods, they attract trouble and stupid people. Just watch any Evil Dead movie and you can see just how messy things can get. And when things get messy... you need a cleaning crew that's fit for the...
Camera Japan Rotterdam 2026 Review: THE OBSESSED
Director Takahashi Wataru may not be a household name yet among anime fans, but the man has built an impressive resumee already. An assistant to Miyazaki at Studio Ghibli, he was one of the people working on the change from...
Camera Japan Rotterdam 2026 Review: CHIMNEY TOWN: FROZEN IN TIME
Six years ago, CGI-special effects specialist Hirota Yuusuke directed his first feature film, the anime Poupelle of Chimney Town, which I happened to like a lot. He just released his second feature, and it is... a sequel to Poupelle of...
Camera Japan Rotterdam 2026 Review: RHAPSODY, RHAPSODY, A Rom-Com Which Keeps It Real
It's the question which pops up in any interview with a director: "What will your next film be?" It is so common a question that if the mood allows for it, I will add "A romantic comedy perhaps?" and that...
HALLOWIEBE OVERDRIVE: This Is NOT A Review...
I normally don't review Dutch movies aimed at children, but there is a first time for everything and last year that was what happened with Hallowiebe, a fun family film with a Halloween theme. I am a big fan of...
Pretty Packaging: Imprint's SPECIES And SPECIES II Boxset Is One Of A Kind
I always love it when a distributor goes crazy with releasing a film, and few go quite as crazy as Australian distributor Via Vision with their Imprint label. Note that their more normal editions are nothing to sneeze at either,...
Vlissingen 2026 Review: ISABEL Shows Mid-Life And Hangovers
Ten years ago, filmmaker Gabe Klinger released his debut feature with Porto (reviewed here by Shelagh), and in that film he put some serious question marks at the popular cinematic trope of people being destined for each other after having...
Vlissingen 2026 Review: WHISPERS IN THE WOODS Stuns With Visual Poetry
During the opening titles of Vincent Munier's new documentary, you watch a forest, for minutes, with trees slowly emerging from the fog, while Hildur Guðnadóttir's Fólk Fær Andlit music plays. Seen on the big screen it's a jawdropper of a...
Vlissingen 2026 Review: TOO MANY BEASTS Delightfully Zigs And Zags
A few minutes into Sarah Arnold's debut film Too Many Beasts I was wondering if the booklet of Vlissingen's Film by the Sea Festival had been misprinted. A comedy? This? Judging from the gore, lighting, music and ehm... bodycount, I...
Vlissingen 2026 Review: YOURI, A Great Film About A Great Friendship
The Film by the Sea festival in Vlissingen (a.k.a. Flushing) started this year on a high note with its opening film Youri, by Sander Burger. The festival always has a large section dedicated to literary adaptations, and its main theme...
Vlissingen 2026: FILM BY THE SEA Recommendations
On Friday the 11th of September, Vlissingen's Film by the Sea festival starts. It's the 28th edition this year, and it has become one of the largest and most glamorous festivals in the Netherlands. Last year saw over 45 thousand...
Breda 2026: Prepare For Pests, Poop And Performances
In the Netherlands, the film festival season is upon us. Every few weeks there will be another big film festival, and kicking off the pack this coming weekend is Breda's B-Film, Underground and Trash Film Festival, known as BUT for...
Interview: Michel Bonset Wants You To Watch Dutch With Him
Like many other countries, the Netherlands have their own film industry with its own knacks, weirdness, rumors and history. Award-winning Dutch scriptwriter (and sometimes actor) Michel Bonset started a channel on Instagram in which he discusses four Dutch films every...
ScreenAnarchy's Top 10 Films Of The First Half Of 2026
We are halfway through 2026 already, a year which has been shaping up so far as an interesting one to say the least. I have already heard several people say they like the first half of 2026 better than all...
Pretty Packaging: ARCANE Season Two Is Loaded
During Christmas, things got rather busy in my household and as the International Film Festival Rotterdam was right after, I totally forgot to show you all the pretty fantastic-looking Blu-ray boxset of the second season of Arcane, the pretty fantastic...
Pretty Packaging: The SHAWSCOPE VOLUME 4 Boxset Kicks Crazy Shins
Distributor Arrow has released its fourth boxset of Shaw Brothers films. The previous three were mentioned here in the Pretty Packaging articles, and this one looks very, VERY similar to them. So I wondered: should I put up an article...
Fantaspoa 2026 Review: IAI
About twenty-five years ago, Japan's special kind of horror suddenly spread over the world like a virus. This horror had none of the fun exuberance of slashers, none of the tongue-in-cheek references to popular culture, and none of the gorefests...
A MAGNIFICENT LIFE Review: It Shows One, Animated
Biopics aren't my favorite kind of film. The things a person has done are often more interesting than the person himself, and it is not often that you need to know the background story of the person, what motivated him....
Rotterdam 2026: What The Audiences Liked Best
One month ago, the 2026 edition of the International Film Festival Rotterdam ended, or at least the cinema showings did. The online streaming service lasted for another few weeks, allowing access to subscribers and press alike (so if you're wondering...
