Wednesday, August 24, 2011 at 6:30 PM
Claudia Cassidy Theater – Chicago, IL
Admission: free

Saturday, August 27, 2011 at 2:00 PM
Claudia Cassidy Theater – Chicago, IL
Admission: free


The Storm tells the story of Julia (Sylvia Hoeks) and Aldo (Barry Atsma) who, during the North Sea flood of 1953, look for Julia’s lost baby. Other roles are played by Dirk Roofthooft, Monic Hendrickx, Katja Herbers and Lottie Hellingman. Rik Launspach and Marjolein Beumer wrote the script for the film, which premiered during September’s Film by the Sea Film Festival.

Cinema/Chicago, in collaboration with the Chicago Cultural Center and international and cultural partners throughout the city, is pleased to host free public film screenings at the 8th Annual International Screenings Program. Seating is on a first come, first served basis and is limited to theater capacity. Films are unrated, and viewer discretion is advised. Cinema/Chicago, the presenting organization of the Chicago International Film Festival, brings the best in international cinema to Chicago through its year-round programming and events. Its mission is to foster better communication between people of diverse cultures through the art of film and the moving image.

Sonny Boy (2011)
Thursday, July 21, 2011 at 8:00 PM (US premiere)
Staller Center For the Arts – Stony Brook, NY
For tickets

Sonny Boy centers on two people: Rika, a devoted, fun-loving mother of four children, and Waldemar, an ambitious, earnest young man from Surinam who travels to Holland to study. The realities of pre-war Dutch society with its prejudices and rigidity, and the brutal, devastating power of World War II will change their lives. Sonny Boy is an adaptation of the bestselling novel by Annejet van der Zijl.

Don’t Touch My Children (2010)
Sunday, July 24, 2011 at 9:30 PM (US premiere)
Staller Center For the Arts – Stony Brook, NY
For tickets

A film by Paul Ruven, which is about child abduction. Every two days in The Netherlands there is an abducted child. Most children never see their mother and family back. Janneke Schoonhoven from Oude Pekela is one of the few who succeeded thanks to her huge struggle to get her children back. Everyone in The Netherlands was watching, when her children were brought back by minister Bot, after they hid for half a year at the Dutch embassy in Syria. Janneke and her children became the symbol for hope. This film tries to get attention for a complex recurring problem, which many agencies continue to look on helplessly. The film begins August 2004. Hanne (Karina Smulders) trusts her two children (of 9 and 11 years old) to their father and her ex-husband Nizar (Cahit Olmez). He claims to take them to Euro Disney in Paris. After a couple of days Hanne gets a phone call from Nizar who is in the Dutch Embassy in Damascus, Syria…

This year is the 16th annual Stoney Brook Festival, which takes place between June 21-30, 2011.

Date: June 17, 2011
Source: Chillicothe Time-Bulletin
News item: Movie review – ‘Bride Flight’ a Dutch treat

It’s taken almost three years for the Dutch treat, “Bride Flight,” to finally land on our shores, but it proves well worth the wait, as it whisks you back in time via narrative and design.

Like the romantic weepies of old, Ben Sombogaart’s epic 2008 tale about three young women emigrating from Holland in 1953 to unite with their prospective husbands in New Zealand is sudsy soap opera at its best, with coincidence and irony oozing from every pore. It’s preposterous as all get out, but it’s also absorbing, a real page-turner that thrives on love, lust and betrayal.

It runs the gamut, too, with everything from an out-of-wedlock baby to a torrid affair complete with naked, heaving bosoms to a pinch of the Holocaust, a splash of wine and a dash of high fashion. It’s almost too much for one movie to contain. Yet, somehow, Sombogaart manages to effectively squeeze it all in to the span of 130 enthralling minutes. Read more…

The original 1953 flight. Photo: cover of Revue October 10th 1953, Nieuwe Revu

Friday, June 10, 2011 at 1:00 PM (first screening)
The Paris Theater – New York, NY
For tickets

Bride Flight (2008) is a lavish romantic drama inspired by the true story of the 1953 KLM flight that won the “Last Great Air Race” from London to Christchurch. The flight was dubbed “Bride Flight” by the international press, because of its special passengers; 40 Dutch immigrants, most of them young women with wedding dresses in their suitcases, traveling to join their fiancés who had already emigrated to New Zealand. Leaving behind the gloom and scarcity of post-WWII Europe, shy but sensual farm girl Ada, dogmatic Marjorie, and Jewish fashion designer Esther are filled with hope for a future of love and freedom. Each takes a very different path in their strange new land, but together with handsome bachelor Frank, they form a bond on the flight that continues to link them for decades to come. Honored with Audience Awards at film festivals across the country, Bride Flight evokes a time of slim choices and desperate optimism, with sweeping views of the New Zealand countryside, stunning period dresses, and the faint smell of Pinot Noir from the thriving vineyard Frank establishes in New Zealand.