Tag: Q&A

attic presents: Chinese Short Film Program #2

attic presents: Chinese Short Film Program #2
Rehearsal for Rest
Screening & Activity

For this edition, we want to collectively explore the concept of “rest” through a program of short films and group activities.Rehearsal for Rest responds to a common experience: the inability to pause. Even when we stop working, part of us is still checking messages, thinking about what’s next, or trying to catch up. We all long to slow down, yet in practice rest can feel unnatural, even performative. Meditation, wellness, and self-care often turn rest into another task. As the year comes to an end, we invite you to step back from the everyday rush and consider what rest might feel like again.
Cinema is a space where reality loosens its grip and time stretches differently. The 6 short films in this program move through atmosphere and sensation. Some move slowly, some have little or no dialogue, and some drift without a fixed storyline. Rather than pushing you toward a definition, they leave room to wander, to get lost, to rest your attention on an image or a sound.

Alongside the screening, we’ve prepared a booklet with film notes, reflections, and small games / exercises. You can explore it whenever you like, during or after the event. In the intermission, we’ll invite those who wish to try a few exercises together, but you’re free to simply take the break for yourself.

The title of the program is inspired by Phil Solomon’s film Rehearsals for Retirement (2007), created within the digital world of GTA. In this work, Solomon departs from the tactile world of celluloid and enters a dematerialized, simulated space where light, texture, and gravity dissolve into something dreamlike. In a similar spirit, our program moves between fiction and reality, between presence and disappearance.

Program Schedule
15:00 Doors open
15:30 Introduction
15:40 Screening Part 1
16:15 Intermission / Group activity
16:40 Screening Part 2
17:30 Closing activity

Film Lineup
00:00 A.M. | Yuanshen Yang | 2022 | 3mins | No dialogues | Dutch premiere
At 23:59, a white-collar worker, who has been working overtime for days on end, finally arrived home.

even if you want to go wherever you want to go it will leave regrets | Tianqi Tang | 2023 | 22mins17s | CN with EN subs | World premiere
*According to the filmmaker, the film’s synopsis drifted into the Moroccan black market with the computer he left behind in Casablanca.*

Night Breezes | Liangqi Yao | 2025 | 7mins43s | No dialogues | Dutch premiere
A late-night walk through London, drawn again and again to the city’s glow.

Les Choses Venues | Ziyang Wang | 2024 | 12mins17s | FR with CN+EN subs | European premiere
Anne travels alone to Auvergne after a strange diagnosis. A friend comes to visit her, and a conversation unfolds.

Chroma | Yunyi Zhu | 2024 | 7mins48s | EN with CN+EN subs | European premiere
Tilda Swinton, boating in the luminous, colorful Kunming Lake, tells us about Jarman’s last film Blue, and his poem Chroma, written during the same period, in a garden by the sea.

Family Images | Yang Li | 2024 | 28mins38s | CN with CN+EN subs | European premiere
Three skateboarding teens start a shared life. On moving day: a crash, a breakup, a stray cat—and a new chapter begins.

About attic
Founded in Amsterdam, attic is a community-oriented platform for moving images and artistic exchange. Follow us on Instagram for updates (@attic.ams).

Check out our previous program here


Old Heart (2025) Screening + Q&A

Award Winning Old Heart’s Amsterdam Premiere

Acclaimed feature Old Heart premieres in Amsterdam at Droog November 22 with costar Eva Doueiri joined by producer Joachim Fleury for a talkback.
This mixed race love story is a timely look elder independence immigration, American Army segregation during World War 2 and humanitarian relief during the Honger Winter of 1944-45. It is also the memorable screen debut of Amsterdam’s Doueiri who has won multiple festival awards for her performance as the romantic lead.
This timeless film has won three festival best feature honors along with multiple cast awards as well as honors for cinematography, editing and the original score.
Old Heart, English spoken subtitled in Dutch tells the story of black American GI Tom Johnson’s arrival in the Netherlands via the legendary Red Ball Express. He joins Dutch translator Sarah van Praag on a dangerous resistance smuggling mission from liberated Southern Netherlands to northern cities trapped behind Nazi lines during the Honger Winter of 1944-45.  They also fall in love.
Sixty years later Tom sabotages his Michigan family’s plan to move him to assisted living and disappears on a flight to the Netherlands, determined to reconnect with the love of his life. With his family in hot pursuit, Tom struggles to find the mysterious Sarah.
A tribute to black soldiers who fought the world’s greatest racist as part of a segregated American Army, the film also honors courageous Southern Dutch citizens who risked their lives to save people starving in the north.

Watch the Trailer Here

Program:

Doors Open – 13:00
Day Screening – 14:00
Doors Open – 18:00
Evening Screening – 19:00

What They Are Saying About Old Heart:

A Stunning Story, Compelling, Entertaining”- Chicago Tribune
“Fabulous … powerful performances from Jamelle Sargent as the young Tom and Eva Doueiri as the young Sarah.”
-Indie Film Library Festival, Amsterdam
Best Feature awards from Marina Del Rey Film Festival Los Angeles, Crown Point Festival in Chicago and East Village Festival in New York
Best Editor (Gene Gamache) Crown Point Festival
Best Actress Eva Doueiri (Sweden Film Awards, Crown Point Festival)
Best Actor Edward Gaines (Mkizhmithran International Film Festival)
Best Composer (Garth Neustadter) Auguri Film Festival, Naples, and Sicilian Film Awards

attic presents: Chinese Short Film Program #1

Someday, That Space in Time

What remains when space is neither home nor destination, but transition?

What kinds of memories emerge when nothing stays long enough to be remembered?

“Someday, That Space in Time” is the 1st edition in attic’s Chinese Short Film Program, bringing together ten short films by emerging Chinese filmmakers that explore how we move through space and time when neither feels fixed.

These are works shaped by transitions — between past and present, physical and digital, memory and forgetting. They reflect on how memory is formed not through certainty but through drift, how space becomes meaningful only in passing, and how the self is shaped by what cannot be held in place.

We invite you to this program not just to watch, but to feel in what shifts, what echoes, and what remains long after it has gone.

  • The majority of the films will have their Netherlands premiere at this event
  • Live Q&A sessions with the filmmakers will follow both parts of the screening
  • All the films are with English subtitles
  • Follow @attic.ams on Instagram for updates

Program Overview:

13:30 Doors

14:00 Part 1. I followed the river before I knew it was memory

  • 知了 Summer Knows | Hongshi ZHONG | 2023 | 20mins | Chinese with English subtitles 
  • 水门的洞口 Where Rivers Part | Linlin DENG | 2025 | 13mins | Chinese with English subtitles 
  • 散射至弥漫 Melting Blue | Ziyuan HE | 2024 | 14mins | Chinese with English subtitles 
  • Imaginary Rescripting | Kexin HONG | 2025 | 24mins | Chinese & English with English subtitles 
  • 盲点、流动 Blind Spot, Flowing | Jiacheng KANG | 2022 | 10mins | No dialogues

16:00 Intermission

16:20 Part 2. I became the trace of everything that passed

  • Unassimilated Tremors | Yiru DING | 2025 | 7mins | No dialogues
  • 倾听 选择 再一场 Listen Choose Once Again | Zhaodong ZENG | 2024 | 4mins | Chinese with English subtitles 
  • 像孙治国一样吃火锅 Mr. Sun’s Hotpot | Weicheng HUA | 2017 | 14mins | Chinese with English subtitles 
  • 九龙东往事 An Asian Ghost Story | Bo WANG | 2023 | 37mins | Chinese & English with English subtitles 
  • 大桥遗犬 A Dog Under Bridge | Rehoo TANG | 2022 | 12mins | Chinese with English subtitles

About attic:

attic is a film and cultural initiative based in Amsterdam, dedicated to creating a welcoming space for independent cinema and shared cultural experiences. Through curated screenings, conversations, and cross-cultural gatherings, attic invites audiences to engage with moving images that transcend language and geography.

We imagine cinema not just as a place to watch, but as a space for connection — for recognition, for reflection, and for building new forms of community.





Who am I? #1 Luci (2024)

Suriname and the Netherlands share a long and complex past, yet the stories, voices, and cultural contributions of Surinamese people have not been celebrated enough within mainstream narratives. By learning about Surinamese culture, we not only honor a vibrant heritage but also confront the legacies of colonialism that continue to shape both societies today. For this reason, we felt it was only fitting to begin our first edition with a focus on Surinamese identity to reflect on how histories live on in the present.

In this first edition of our cultural screening series Who am I?, we will start our program with the film Luci (2024) directed by Mathieu Wijdeven and Mateo Vega accompanied with a warm Surinamese food service and Q&A after. Luci is a short archive documentary (40 min) about the memory and legacy of the great-great-grandfather of performer and co-director Mathieu Wijdeven: the Surinamese artist G.G.T. Rustwijk (1862-1914), also known by his pseudonym Luci.

Rustwijk lived in Suriname shortly after slavery as a theater maker and performer, multidisciplinary artist, as a man of color and as an early critic of the Dutch colonial regime – before he finally fell into oblivion. This archival documentary investigates the ‘light’ of Rustwijk and what has remained of it in today’s Suriname on the basis of performance, interviews, archival material and historical locations. Luci was selected for a Gouden Kalf (debut competition) in the Netherlands Film Festival.

 

Following the screening, we will host a Q&A with co-director and performer Mathieu Wijdeven, Rustwijk’s descendant inviting reflections on identity, cultural inheritance, and the emotional complexities of returning to one’s roots.

To complement the screening, we invite guests to join us before the event for a warmly prepared vegetarian Surinamese roti roll which you can take with you to the screening. Rooted in tradition and rich with flavor, the meal offers a moment to share a communal experience. By pairing cinema with cuisine, this program aims to create a multi-sensory experience that connects storytelling to taste, history to present, and individual memory to collective culture.

The film will be in Dutch language with English subtitles.

Program:

Wednesday 14 may 2025

18:30 – 19:30 Food Service & Drinks

19:30 – 19:40 Welcome & Introduction

19:40 – 20:20 Film Screening: Luci

20:20 – 21:00 Q&A

About the Who am I? Series:

Who am I?  is a monthly curated film and cultural program that explores the layered and evolving experience of cultural identity. Curated by Alya Yumrukçal, a film and documentary programmer deeply interested in questions of belonging, this series invites audiences to reflect on where they come from, what they carry with them, and how identity is formed across time, space, and memory.

Through building a film program that explores global identities from a transnational perspective I aim to bring both national and international communities together to feel belonged and welcomed despite their physical distances from their original cultures and countries. I aim to create a dialogue between understanding our families, friends, neighbours, through connecting and thinking critically about the way our cultures shape who we are.