Paul Ruven

Hockney: I Love View (2024)

When painter Pieter Athmer discovered that his inspiration David Hockney was living in nearby Normandy, he created a surprise for him, and left on a roadtrip from Amsterdam to France with his good friend, director Gerardjan Rijnders. ...

The Tatta's (2022)

A well-to-do white family struck by overnight financial ruin struggle to find their place in the urban, multicultural working-class neighborhood they are forced to move into. ...

Het nieuwe Soestdijk (2022)

My Best Friend Anne Frank (2021)

Based on the real-life friendship between Anne Frank and Hannah Goslar, from Nazi-occupied Amsterdam to their harrowing reunion in a concentration camp. ...

Before Bedtime (2020)

Before bedtime is the worst time of the day for Duco, a 12-year-old boy. Only one way seems to remain to permanently put an end to this. ...

Soccer Is War (2018)

Achilles '29 from Groesbeek has been a top club in amateur football for years. In recent years they even surpass De Treffers, their bigger brother and competitor in the construction worker's village. When the club can promote to professional football via a ...

Hostage X (2018)

You wake up, with no memory. You have 90 minutes before your kidnappers will kill you, unless you find out who you are and why these foreign people want to kill you. A thriller in the vein of "Buried" with a devious twist. ...

Safe (2017)

A thriller with a surprise twist about the NSA Deputy Director, who needs a genius plan to save his child from a kidnapper, who wants him to betray the privacy of all US citizens and make him the next Snowden with a devious marketing plan. ...

Robin de Puy: Ik ben het allemaal zelf (2016)

The Surrender (2014)

The Surrender is a romantic erotic film based on the novel The surrender of Floor by Renee Amstel. A critic called the novel: "the Dutch answer to the Fifty Shades of Grey hype". Eva is a pretty young woman. She works in a cafe and her dream is to be a sin ...

Ushi Must Marry (2013)

Ushi Hirosaki has to marry according to Japanese tradition before her 30th birthday. Because time is running out, her family decides she has to marry a huge sumo wrestler. A rather unfortunate combination, so Ushi wants to look for a nicer candidate hersel ...

The Rotterdam Bombing (2012)

A thrilling love story between the young boxer Vincent and the German Eva, who soon has to marry with the middle-aged Dirk to save her family. While the war starts in the Netherlands their impossible love inflames. May 14, 1940, the day that the centre of ...

Kill Zombie! (2012)

The bizarre story takes place in Amsterdam-West, where a virus turns people into bloodthirsty zombies. Although much blood is flowing and many limbs chopped off, there is a lot to laugh at in this bizarre horror comedy. ...

Me & Mr Jones on Natalee Island (2011)

Five years after the disappearance of high school girl Natalee Holloway in Aruba, an ambitious journalist wants to break into alleged murderer Joran van der Sloot's home to force a breakthrough in the case. ...

The Garden Party (2010)

Fruit farmer Van Leeuwen is diagnosed with advanced Alzheimer's. His eldest son, lawyer Ernst, arranges to have him admitted in a residential home. Ernst's shy brother Nico, who stayed on to take care of dad and the farm, made a mess of it business-wise. M ...

Gangsterboys (2010)

Mahmut, the son of a poor Turkish greengrocer in the Netherlands, dreams of escaping his retail fate by becoming a rapper. But things change radically when he and his best friend Apo find out that a dangerous Turkish gang is extorting money from their fath ...

Surprise! (2009)

Just before his wedding, a Dutch man discovers that he has an African daughter. Is it blackmail or not? He has to find out quickly before the wedding. He has to travel with his alleged daughter through an African country in turmoil to uncover a surprising ...

The Emperor's Wife (2003)

In an undisclosed location and time, in the land of 1001 nights, the law dictates that the Emperor must take a new wife if his current Empress does not bear a son within seven years of marriage. At the celebration Ball of their sixth wedding anniversary, t ...

Maxima's Miracle (2003)

February 2002. An Argentinian mother and her daughter visit Amsterdam during the wedding of prince Willem-Alexander and princess Máxima. She is looking for a miracle, the reappearing of her husband Alejandro, who got lost during the regime. She experience ...

Javier Guzman: Deelt Uit I (2002)

Enigma (1999)

A Hollywood producer tries to grab the role of a lifetime. ...

The Fourteenth Chick (1998)

As a young couple find themselves lost in Amsterdam en route to their own engagement dinner, tensions arise at the restaurant where their friends and family are left waiting for them. ...

Sur place (1996)

A mysterious foreign woman who is staying temporarily in a house there. Who she is and what her secret is are both slowly revealed in the reconstruction of a story about passion, revenge and war. Paul Ruven's homage to the films of Marguerite Duras and Cha ...

Filmpje! (1995)

Bob and Annie separate. After the court case Annie gives Bob two airline tickets for a tropical island to save their relationship. However, Bob takes someone else with him on holiday: Carmen, the daughter of Mafioso Don Gorgonzola. Annie lags behind in Hol ...

Paradise Framed (1995)

In this art-film, a famous multimedia artist abandons his former life for a new one in a hermetically sealed room filled with living portraits. His new space becomes a haven for the terminally dysfunctional. Trouble ensues when two strangers, the world-wea ...

ZAP (1994)

Switching from one popular TV-genre to another, a dramatic love-story unfolds between the nun Agnes and a Tv-reporter/Rock-star. ...

En Route (1994)

Lou is a Turkish cellmate on leave, who has started proving his Turkish cellmate to save him from marrying another with his Turkish lover. The leaver enlists the help of his wife who has suddenly entered into a relationship with the responsible probation o ...

Love Hurts (1993)

In 1990s Amsterdam, Loe and Bob are in a relationship, but wanting different things. Loe is a singer who likes to party and who is also engaged in migrant support. Bob is a lawyer focused on his career. As the film progresses, the tensions in the relations ...

The Best Thing in Life (1993)

Sahara Sandwich (1991)

Ryder is a psychiatrist who can flawlessly analyze his clients' problems, but is hopelessly alone in solving his own mental distress. One day, Sleuth, a detective, bursts into Ryder's office with the news that Ryder is suspected of murdering three women. R ...

The Tears of Maria Machita (1991)

Based on the traditional Dutch smartlap genre (an overly dramatic folk song). Maria Machita has to deal with a lot of heartache in this short musical film; her father dies in an accident, her mother perishes in the theatre, and her sweet Turkish boyfriend ...

Revelations of an Insomniac (1991)

How to Survive a Broken Heart (1991)

D.C. has been abandoned by his girlfriend Nola, wants to go to Hollywood and participates in 'chicken races' out of desperation and lack of money; a perilous event in which one travels a certain distance on the road by car without stopping. ...

Let the Music Dance (1990)

Composer Adam has to compose a European anthem while a tax inspector gets in his way. ...

The Night of the Wild Donkeys (1990)

A satire about the difficult way films are made in the Netherlands. The focus is on the painstaking way in which aspiring filmmakers, have to see the script in hand, grants and funds available. ...

Max & Laura & Henk & Willie (1989)

The romantic pharmacist Max is in a relationship with Willie and also has a platonic relationship with Laura. The artist Henk is the fourth player in this game of quartets. The foursome is comically torn between the urge for independence and the desire for ...

Alaska (1989)

A slaughterhouse worker appears to be romantically involved with his boss's wife. They plan to leave the country together, but at the airport she waits for him in vain. Slowly but surely the three of them get entangled in a fateful web of betrayal, jealous ...

Lost in Amsterdam (1989)

A tasty, vulgar, low-budget, urban road movie about a satirical drawn art environment with great impromptu renditions and Peter Falk detective pastiche Wingers to lick your thumbs and fingers. The American-Dutch psychiatrist Bold Wasser plays in his role a ...

Pierrot Lunaire (1988)

A series of short vignettes set in a Berlin Mietskaserne (rental barracks for the poor), framed by Schönberg's atonal piece Pierrot Lunaire. ...

Naughty Boys (1984)

After debuting in 1983 with Casta Diva, Eric de Kuyper immediately made Naughty Boys in 1984, a film that he himself described as "a sad musical comedy" in which he pays homage to the old musicals and comedies. The film is set in an unspecified time, somew ...

Casta Diva (1982)

In a series of long held shots, men are observed performing simple tasks in real time, while on the soundtrack we hear excerpts from opera. ...