Open-air Film Festival Pluk de Nacht Prays for No Rain

Jul 31, 2011
Cecily Layzell

Philip Seymour Hoffman in Jack Goes Boating - Overture Films

A soggy Amsterdam gears up for the 8th edition of open-air film festival Pluk de Nacht, which opens August 4 with Berlinale winner Above Us Only Sky.

Pluk de Nacht (Seize the Night), Amsterdam's annual open-air film festival, returns for its eighth edition from August 4-13, 2011. As in previous years, the program covers feature films, shorts and documentaries from around the world.

Pluk de Nacht is part film festival and part funfair. Films are shown nightly for free when the sun goes down (around 9.30pm), as the audience lounges on deck chairs that can be rented for a small fee at the entrance.

The festival terrain opens at 4pm for drinks and snacks, this year provided among others by local steak and pizza pros Rosa & Rita, and each screening is followed by a DJ, dancing and campfires.

Berlinale Winner to Open Film Festival

Pluk de Nacht will open with relationship drama Über uns das All (Above Us Only Sky), the first feature film from German director Jan Schomburg. The storyline revolves around the question: how well do you really know someone? Paul (Felix Knopp)and Martha (Sandra Hüller) are an ordinary couple with ordinary aspirations. That is until Paul gets a job in Marseille and Martha discovers he is not the person she thought he was.

Schomburg also wrote the film’s script, which is largely based on a story he heard from a friend. "I found that story about someone who committed suicide and then turned out not to be who he said he was, fascinating. Other people's stories give me a lot of inspiration; I can't write about my personal life," he said.

Above Us Only Sky won the European Cinema Label prize for best feature film in the Panorama Section of the 2011 Berlin International Film Festival. The four-strong jury praised the film for its economical story-telling (and) humor alongside the strong emotions. However, other reviewers have criticized it for being 'too vague and conceptual to engage emotionally.'

Also showing is Jack Goes Boating, an offbeat drama of love, betrayal and learning to swim directed by and starring Philip Seymour Hoffman; and the home-grown documentary De Engel van Doel (The Angel of Doel) by Tom Fassaert.

The Film Festival Must Go On

The festival’s organizers must be hoping for good weather after what Dutch weather site Weeronline.nl called 'the wettest July since 1966.' Film screenings will go ahead whatever the weather, say organizers, but if it is wet enough screenings may be moved into the Pluk tent.

Pluk de Nacht was founded in 2003 by a group of friends and film fans. Their aim was to bring to the Netherlands film festival gems that had no or only limited distribution in Dutch movie theaters.

Pluk de Nacht is held at the Stenen Hoofd, a normally vacant lot east of Amsterdam's Central Station. The full film festival program can be found on Pluk de Nacht’s website.