Tag: Dutch
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The universal comical tropes of ‘Football Parents’ (2025)
Soccer Moms and Soccer Dads, the Dutch Netflix series Football Parents (Voetbalouders) is for you — if you want to see all the archetypes of you and your fellow team parents personified and exaggerated in film. Writer-Director-Star Ilse Warringa has pulled characters from her 15 years on the touchlines of youth football so that you…
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‘In Oranje’ (2004) is a fine family film if you ignore the poisonings
In Oranje is a fantasy ghost film that, at over 20 years old, is both timeless and refreshing. It deftly combines tragedy, grief, resilience, fantasy, family, and passion for the game. If I were going to host a football film festival, I would choose this as an inspirational example of storytelling — except for the…
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‘Ultras of Egypt’ (2018) – when revolution fails
Ultras of Egypt is one of those powerful films where, I watched it in the beginning of the pandemic and it made me so sad, I couldn’t write the review. The filmmakers interview participants from the Arab Spring of 2011, who refer to the 18-day protest in Tahrir Square as The Revolution.
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‘Cool Kids Don’t Cry’ (2012) is a better Eighth Grade
Cool Kids Don’t Cry is a hopeful and touching film about a vibrant eighth grade girl who contracts leukemia, and how she and her classmates respond to her illness as it progresses.
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‘Johan’ (2005) finds love despite 10 footballing brothers
Johan is a very enjoyable dramedy/romance that, in a gentle way, shows that soccer is just a game, even in the Netherlands. The youngest in a family of 11 soccer-obsessed Dutch boys and their father, Johan doesn’t fit in because his obsession is music.
