In Kings of War, director Ivo van Hove focuses on political leadership. The original texts were retranslated by Rob Klinkenberg and then thoroughly adapted: the Hundred Years' War between England and France, and the Rose Wars between the houses of Lancaster and York for the English throne, which are emphatically present as a historical context in the original pieces, were referred to the background in the adaptation in order to accommodate a varied portrait of successive kings. As leaders in times of political instability and war, they show remarkable affinities with world leaders today.
A lonely boy, who lives in Amsterdam with his refugee mother from Kosovo, keeps getting into trouble while yearning for her acceptance. But the traumas caused by the war, which his mother hides away from him, turn his world upside down.
A group of holidaymakers descends on the West Frision Island Vlieland, where each of them is confronted with relational problems. Loneliness, surfacing secrets or a crisis; everyone gets their share.
Felix has been raised by his grandmother and has never met his father. His father Johan, doesn't even know he exists. Felix decides to become a regular in his father's bar in Amsterdam to secretly learn more about the man he has never known.
For all Frits, a farmer's son, knows, his mother died when giving birth to him. He and his father make up a strong team. In the literal and figurative sense, because his father not only teaches him to milk the cows and hunt, he is also the coach of his soccer team. The happy tide turns when the boy turns eighteen and is scouted as a promising soccer talent. Suddenly, Frits's future is no longer with his father on the farm, but on the green grass of the Nijmegen soccer club NEC. His son's splendid soccer career may be the crowning glory of the farmer's hard work, but he is afraid he will also lose his only child. Desperate, he reveals the lie with which he raised his son. Frits is bewildered and makes a dramatic decision.
A lonely middle-aged woman dines alone in a Chinese restaurant on her birthday. She pays close attention to the other patrons, imagining their relationships and personal situations. She remembers her past lovers and child, and broods on her bitter sense of loss and loneliness. In an unthinking moment, she announces to the waitress that it is her birthday, and the entire social dynamic in the restaurant is altered. An intensely moving, bittersweet and realistic look at emotional loss and disconnection.
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