I always find it hard to talk about foreign film without sounding like a pretentious bastard who prefers a three-hour Japanese drama over watching Iron Man. Why not both? If you have a look at the list of the films I watch week by week – and you can do so here my Letterboxd diary – you'll find out I'm anything but a snob when it comes to film. With exceptions and to different degrees, of course, I pretty much love all films.
With that out of the way, I'd like to now rave a bit about this Dutch film I watched last night entitled "Jongens" in its original language, "Boys" in English. There seems to be a bit of a wave of really good cinema from the last couple of years concentrating on gay coming of age stories. This one, intended for the small screen in its home country, joins this wave with a modern and (it seems to me) realistic take on things. Watch "Jongens" on iTunes here.
If you enjoy "Jongens", I recommend "North Sea Texas" (Belgium) and "The Way He Looks" (Brazil)
I have a habit of looking through everyone's imdb profile after watching a film. Last night this took me to the main actor's profile: Gijs Blom. At only 18 he seems to be not only a promising actor but also a filmmaker with a pretty solid short – "Escapade" – directed and co-written by him, which you can watch below.
"Escapade" somehow took me to another, slightly more mature, short film. There is something fascinating about how the Dutch portray friendship in film, which is actually a bit in line with the way the Swedes and Norwegians do it too. But that I'll save for another day.
Here below the second short film, "Ballen", which takes it very own spin on cancer as a subject but it's mainly about friendship too.
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