The Dinner

Paulette, a nude model from France, has recently settled in the United States with her husband, a photographer. After dropping her husband off at his studio, she goes to work posing for a nudie photographer. During a break from the photo session she falls asleep and dreams that she visits a night club, goes hitch-hiking, and is chased through the woods and along a riverbank by a crazed would-be rapist who ties her up. She is rescued by a handsome man and is later chased by an ape. The handsome man is temporarily abducted by four naked native women who drag him into the river and dance to rock 'n' roll music.

A somewhat romanticized fairy-tale about an erotic guesthouse. Everything is improvised with amateur actors and without a script. The movie decades later has received a cult status as an obscure document of its day.

When young schoolteacher Mary Adams is out of the classroom, she dreams of the days when the world was peopled by knights and beautiful ladies in distress. She is so imbued with the spirit of romance that when a strange young man rescues her from a street ruffian, she idolizes her hero, picturing him as a regular Sir Galahad. Mary's rescuer is Jim Anthony, a mechanic with inventive talents. Embittered after his invention is stolen, he becomes a burglar. Knowing nothing of this, Mary falls in love with him and marries him. He's a product of the slums, and in his wandering he has lost track of his mother. When he finally learns that she's living in the Carolina mountains, he persuades Mary to go with him to visit her. He takes with him a bag of jewelry, the plunder gained in his recent robberies. They find Anthony's mother living alone in a hut. The old woman has become a wretched creature. She fails to recognize her son, who asks for a night's shelter for himself and his wife. While unpacking, Mary discovers the jewelry and confronts Jim, who confesses his crime. Horrified, Mary orders Jim from the room, locks herself in, and goes to sleep on a couch in the main room. The old woman finds the jewels and her cupidity leads her to try to kill the man she doesn't know as her son. Mary finds Jim unconscious from his wound and hurries to the village for medical aid. She keeps away from him, and on his recovery he returns to the city and makes restitution of the stolen property. A reconciliation is brought about several years later.

The film, which tells the worlds of a teenager, his father and his younger brother, is about the anxieties, searches and future plans of 3 people. It describes the complex reflections of traditional production forms on the human spirit.

1992: The undocumented Ghanaian Agymah (50) lives a secluded life as a cook in the outskirts of Amsterdam. When the ambitious dreamer Nina (12) arrives, Agymah is effectively forced to become her guardian. Nina drives Agymah crazy with her callous way of life and her eagerness to make contact with the outside world. Gradually, though, Agymah comes to understand that this is exactly what he has been escaping from and he realizes he must choose for life instead of waiting for death. When El Al flight 1862 crashes into their building, Agymah goes on a desperate search for the girl that gave him a reason to live. Into Thin Air is the first film based on the Bijlmer crash. It tells a human story of an event that has been branded into the collective memory of The Netherlands. Officially there were 43 fatalities, but because of the large number of illegal residents the actual figure will never be known.