Director: Pascale Simons.
The daughter of a mother who wants to die, a disabled soccer player, a family man with a double life, a hip couple in their thirties and a broken family with an autistic son. They all live in one city. And in the next 24 hours , they will be more connected than they think. A painful and loving look at the complexity of loneliness in the Netherlands. LOTUS is a rare cinematic experience that challenges audiences to question their own loneliness and that of others. Diving headfirst into the harsh individualistic reality of a big city, this film investigates fear, loneliness and love from multiple perspectives. No one seems safe in the battle for happiness. And no one is immune to the hidden pain of individualism and anonymity that causes loneliness and changes lives. The lotus is a water plant that grows from the mud towards the light. The lotus effect is the phenomenon that occurs when dirt lands on the leaf of a Lotus: It won't stick. This self-cleaning feature is due to the numerous small bumps on the leaf.

Director: Erik de Goederen.
A nine year old boy (Pepijn Borst) lives in a world which, seen through his eyes, is deeper and more mysterious than a superficial glimpse would suggest. Sometimes the most simple things in life contain sheer beauty and enchantment.
But the boy is lonely too, because he cannot share his experiences with others. Who sees what he sees? Who hears what he hears? And who dreams what he is dreaming?

Director: Jean Counet.
Time seems to have stopped in the village of Pededze in northeast Latvia. Animals are making noise, the wind is sighing and a wrinkly old lady, leaning on a curved walking cane, is chasing chickens out of the stable. But time has not stopped: on the contrary. Time is passing and Latvia has gone through some drastic changes during the past fifteen years. Trulichka is a portrayal of the life in Pededze village. There the old and new generations live side by side. Old folks reminisce over the good old Soviet times, lamenting the new life and unemployment following the fall of socialism. Some of their relatives have stayed behind Russian borders and without a visa they can’t go see each other. As to the youth of EU times, they don’t feel any need to visit their former motherland. Trulichka is a warm and humane depiction of the old making way for the new, and also of their mutual harmony in today’s Latvia, living under winds of change.