Marjon Brandsma

March 11th, 2002. John R. takes the head of security and 17 others hostage in Amsterdam biggest skyscraper. John R. demands to speak with the Philips head of Sound&Vision. His goal is to warn people about a large-scale fraud, aimed at brainwashing consumers by means of widescreen TV sets. In the film, we find out about John's preliminary frustrations, his bizarre encounter with Philips head of Sound&Vision Gerard Wesselinck, their impossible friendship, rivalry and John's armed attempt to force the executive to do penance in public.

For all his life Frank Goudvis has tried not to follow in the footsteps of his father. When his father is mysteriously murdered, Frank loses his alibi for his cherished passivity and decides to travel to the crime scene.

Nico and Leo are getting married. Their entire family and both their exes are in attendance. Some of these are performing musical numbers on stage. But memories of the war and the fact that Leo's mother died in a concentration camp keeps coming to the forefront.

The film is about a successful artist Vincent, whose marriage to Linda falls apart due to his success. This is partly because Vincent starts a relationship with Evelien. Another important event is the fatal traffic accident involving his son Erik.

A devoted yet stressed out housewife takes a holiday to relax, and falls in love with another woman: a guitar-playing hippie who lives in a commune.

Tim, now a respectable family man, runs into his old buddy Bodde. Bodde convinces Tim to go out with him under the motto: "Laugh, laugh, laugh!" Tim calls his wife to tell her "he'll be a little late," while Bodde keeps persuading him to stay with him for a new deal or a wonderful plan, and so they roam the country. Along the way, they swindle money from everyone and meet the young, beautiful Aafke. Isn't Tim too old for all this?

Doodslag (Dutch for "Manslaughter") is the story of Max, a paramedic who is repeatedly hindered in performing his duties by loutish behaviour. As his ambulance hurries towards a complicated childbirth, some youths prevent Max from reaching the distressed woman in labour. Spurred on by the emergency and the incendiary words of a TV pundit, he reaches a boiling point and forcefully hits one of the men obstructing his ambulance. Max's strike has far-reaching, unintended consequences.

Under pressure from his publisher, Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky gets work on his latest piece, 'Rouletenberg'. In the 27 days it takes for him to complete the novel reality and fiction become blurred; in this feverish atmosphere of excess Dostoyevsky's characters come to life as he struggles to complete his work.

Following 'Leedvermaak' (Schadenfreude) from 1989 and 'Qui vive' from 2001, the trilogy is now complete with 'Happy end'. Frans Weisz directed, Judith Herzberg wrote. A family history in which three generations of a Jewish family each struggle in their own way...

The characters from Leedvermaak have fared twelve years later. Lea's first husband, Alexander, makes a sequel to the wedding film and shows us the familiar characters and how they have fared. Dory, Nico's first wife, is pregnant. The father of the child is Simon, Lea's father. Nico has fallen into crisis and decides to resign as hospital director. He retreats to the farm where he hid during the war. Hans, Nico's best friend, is married to Pien. After fathering seven children, he flees this marriage. Nico's father, Zwart, increasingly isolates himself from the world; he reads and rereads the camp letters from his first wife.

The failed poet Wessel Franken trades his career in poetry for a career as director of a publicity agency.