IDFA-films in Dutch cinemas

A number of films previously screened at IDFA will also receive a theatrical release after the festival. Here you can find which IDFA films are now playing in Dutch movie theaters, including Hotel Mokum and Alreadymade.

Pak Mokum Terug is the name of a group of Amsterdam activists that refuse to accept that the basic right to housing no longer appears to apply. The group’s name means “Take Back Amsterdam,” Mokum being the traditional nickname for a capital city in which today, for more and more people, a home is becoming unaffordable. Against this background, Hotel Mokum reports on the squatting of a dilapidated hotel in the city center, narrated in the voice of a fictitious activist.

We follow the events through mobile phone, archive and fictional footage. The squatters turn the derelict hotel into a vibrant living and working community, creating not only living spaces, but also studios and places for meetings and neighborhood parties. To mark their first month in the building, they hold a cheerful celebration. But less than two weeks later, their hopes are dashed when a judge orders their eviction, and the riot police arrive to throw them out.

In 2004, a urinal was voted the most influential work ever in modern art. Famed artist and provocateur Marcel Duchamp claimed to have created “Fountain”—or rather, he bought the mass-produced product and signed it—but according to some, it is the lesser-known, flamboyant Dadaist artist Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven who should take credit for transforming this much-discussed porcelain “piss pot” into art.

Filmmaker Barbara Visser has delved into the absurd history of the iconic work, of which it is uncertain whether the original still exists. The absurdity is heightened by the fact that Visser regularly intervenes in the film to chat with the designer, giving instructions to change fonts or to zoom in on photos.

Beneath the cool-blue glaciers, gushing waterfalls and crisp green deciduous trees, we hear the soft tick-tick of 84-year-old Jørgen’s hiking poles as he cautiously navigates the boulders he encounters on his route. His daughter, director Margreth Olin, films him over the course of a year as he guides them through Oldedalen, a spectacular valley in Norway which he knows like the back of his hand.

Margreth left many years ago, but her parents and the generations before them have tended to stay put. They grew up, fell in love and raised families here. The occasional earthquakes and floods, and the resulting loss of loved ones, are all part of life in this capricious natural environment. As the elderly can be, her father is voluble when it comes to that sort of family tale, as well as trivia about the village and anecdotes from his own childhood. But he is quiet when he walks among the rocks and animals—and the drones.