
Production
Matthijs van Heijningen
Born
1944-01-01 (82)
Place of birth
Alphen aan den Rijn, Zuid-Holland, Netherlands
Known for
Production
Credits
41 titles
Known for
5.8A lift technician finds himself drawn into a web of mystery and peril as he investigates the perplexing deadly accidents occurring in the elevators of a new office building.
The Lift
1983
6.8In the occupied Netherlands near the end of WWII, a young teenager, Jeroen Boman (Maarten Smit) is sent to the Dutch countryside to avoid the war in Amsterdam. While living with his adopted family, Jeroen meets and becomes friends with a Canadian soldier named Walt Cook, who is stationed at the same town he is staying at. Joroen and Walt spend a lot of time playing around and eventually a romantic relationship develops between them. The boy’s sexual curiosity leads him to have a sexual experience with Walt, an encounter that is shown with some vague detail but without actually showing any nudity, even though sexual intimacy between the two of them is implied. Overall, the movie handles this difficult subject with an elegant style and feeling, without having the adult-child relationship overwhelm the viewer and thus allowing the movie to be seen as just a wartime relationship between two people that marks an important time in a young boy’s life.
For a Lost Soldier
1992
5.1Paul Flanagan is released from jail after serving for 8 years. He only has two things on his mind. First: to retrieve the money from the robbery he was convicted for. Secondly: to get revenge on his partners in crime (his half-brother Paul and his ex-lover Cathy), who got away Scot free and never once visited him in jail.
Flanagan
1975
6.2Melodrama about a man cursed with immortality, who tries to declare his undying love for a depressed actress.
All Men Are Mortal
1995
NRTheo van Gogh yearned for love, attention and freedom. How do his family, colleagues, friends and enemies view the radical way in which he worked and lived? And, twenty years after the murder of Theo van Gogh, how do we relate to the discussions he sparked at the time?
Theo van Gogh: The Yearning
2024
6.2Johanna wants to change her life and quit the criminal gangs of the town of Oss in the 1930s. The harder she tries, the more she is involved.
The Gang of Oss
2011
Film credits
1990s · 3 titles
7.0Documentary that looks back at 35 years of Dutch cinema, with Paul Verhoeven and others.
Hollywood by Bike
1993
7.0A documentary celebrating 25 years of flemish subsidised cinema.
Janssen & Janssens draaien een film
1990
5.7The movie stars you see on the screen have once been selected amongst others. The glamor of the premiere is preceded by mug shots, selections, interviews, wining, dining, backstabbing and sex. In the end, everyone gets what they deserve.
Based on the Novel
1999
1980s · 1 titles
Series credits
Behind the camera
5.8A lift technician finds himself drawn into a web of mystery and peril as he investigates the perplexing deadly accidents occurring in the elevators of a new office building.
The Lift
1983
6.8In the occupied Netherlands near the end of WWII, a young teenager, Jeroen Boman (Maarten Smit) is sent to the Dutch countryside to avoid the war in Amsterdam. While living with his adopted family, Jeroen meets and becomes friends with a Canadian soldier named Walt Cook, who is stationed at the same town he is staying at. Joroen and Walt spend a lot of time playing around and eventually a romantic relationship develops between them. The boy’s sexual curiosity leads him to have a sexual experience with Walt, an encounter that is shown with some vague detail but without actually showing any nudity, even though sexual intimacy between the two of them is implied. Overall, the movie handles this difficult subject with an elegant style and feeling, without having the adult-child relationship overwhelm the viewer and thus allowing the movie to be seen as just a wartime relationship between two people that marks an important time in a young boy’s life.
For a Lost Soldier
1992
5.1Paul Flanagan is released from jail after serving for 8 years. He only has two things on his mind. First: to retrieve the money from the robbery he was convicted for. Secondly: to get revenge on his partners in crime (his half-brother Paul and his ex-lover Cathy), who got away Scot free and never once visited him in jail.
Flanagan
1975
6.2Melodrama about a man cursed with immortality, who tries to declare his undying love for a depressed actress.
All Men Are Mortal
1995
6.2Johanna wants to change her life and quit the criminal gangs of the town of Oss in the 1930s. The harder she tries, the more she is involved.
The Gang of Oss
2011
6.3When three women with no previous acquaintance kill a male shopkeeper in the middle of the day, the female psychiatrist assigned to the case sets out to understand why.
A Question of Silence
1982
5.7The delicate story of the impossible love between an older married man and a fourteen-year old schoolgirl.
The Debut
1977
6.0Diane and Dora are two prostitutes who begin to rebel against their lot in life. Meanwhile, in another part of town, a murderer is at large.
Broken Mirrors
1984
7.0A young Amsterdam lawyer seems to be doing well, but occasionally he is overwhelmed by an unstoppable need for booze. During one of his delirious episodes, he witnesses the death of a squatter at a police station. Worried about his career, he hesitates to speak out.
Punk Lawyer
1996
6.6Lovable Amsterdam street urchin, 11 year old Ciske is nevertheless much in need of love as the Dutch 1984 title suggests. He is a scamp with a heart of gold. He causes havoc in the classroom pouring ink over his teacher yet when a polio-crippled boy joins the class Ciske is one of the only children to befriend him and is bullied as a result. His mother works in a bar and Ciske helps out often late into the night - his father is at sea and his mother supplements her income with prostitution. Ciske is also a very angry young man and he smoulders with rage at life's injustices.
Ciske the Rat
1984
5.0A 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.
A Woman Like Eve
1979
7.3In a small, unnamed European town the entire population depends upon the local, ailing factory. When American investors arrive, prosperity fever infects the residents.
1,000 Roses
1994
6.3Albert has always looked up to his aunt Tiny: this beautiful woman from Brabant can make any man’s heart skip a beat. Through Albert’s eyes Tiny’s life seems quite exciting. But why is she so furious at everyone and everything? It takes him half a lifetime to discover that his beloved aunt’s existence is a lot more complex than he had ever thought.
The Fury
2016
4.6Life Is Wonderful is a feel-good movie about love and longing. Best friends Mees and Boelie are spending a beautiful spring day in Amsterdam's Vondelpark. It seems like just a normal day, until they meet the young and attractive Panda. While the heat rises in the park, it's nowhere to be found between the long-married couple Etta and Ernst-Jan. Ernst-Jan suspects Etta of cheating and has his own ideas of how to catch her in the act. We also meet Rosa and Kees, old lovers whose paths cross after decades of not seeing each other. On this spring day in Amsterdam, their love starts blooming again.
Life Is Wonderful
2018
5.4During World War II, two members of the Dutch resistance share the same goal but use very different methods to reach it.
Shadow of Victory
1986
5.2In the winter of 1891 a stranger arrives in a small coastal town on the Isle of Man. His presence soon disturbs the lives of the local inhabitants, especially the beautiful daughter of the parson.
Mysteries
1978
6.2Hedwig, a young wealthy woman growing up in the straight-jacket of bourgeois morality in the Victorian era, descends into madness after years of sexual repression and tragedy.
The Cool Lakes of Death
1982
5.3When Eva no longer finds satisfaction in her relationship with Hans, her phobias reappear. Through Hans' former colleague Jack she learns to deal with her fears, the hard way.
Een zaak van leven of dood
1983
6.2A frustrated artist from the city is seeking solace with a recently widowed farmer. To get closer to the farmer, she does her utmost to approximate his departed wife. But her fertile imagination leads her to go too far.
Vigour
1990
NRA woman as an object of poetic observation seen through the eager eye of the camera. Cinematic means are used to reflect the moods of women.
She
1976
5.8Maarten, a milquetoast bachelor living with his terminally ill mother, is haunted by a nightmare in which God tells him to lose his virginity or die within the week.
A Flight of Rainbirds
1981
4.9Lieve Jongens explores the sexual fantasies of a middle-aged writer and the handsome young men who dominate his life. Wolf, a successful writer of romantic novels, is plagued by self doubt and writer's block. Though pleasant looking and well-preserved, he fears age will rob him of the youthful companionship he so desperately craves. With the help of his equally randy and manipulative young sex partner, Wolf plots to seduce the gentle Muskrat from the arms of a much older lover.
Dear Boys
1980
6.0A man of independent means oddly suited to survival amid the chaos of modern life, Inni Wintrop is a committed dabbler, content to casually wander the streets of Amsterdam, follow the dips and rises of the stock exchange and commodities market, speculate in art and love, and write a newspaper horoscope column. But his inconsistencies are interrupted when he meets two men who are the epitome of order and regulation.
Rituals
1989
7.0A young aggressive man from a small town goes to Amsterdam. He attacks several people, finds a girlfriend and takes her back home. Because of his misbehavior, this friendship ends soon afterwards.
Blood Andy
1979
6.3A series of four stories written by the Dutch writer Heere Heeresma, interpreted by four different directors. A confirmed bachelor bumps into his secretary after work. An old man just wants to be left alone at Christmas time. A former sailor yearns to get back to the sea, away from his clarinet playing wife. A shopkeeper in a rowboat gets into an argument with a postman on a bicycle.
Melancholy Tales
1975
No synopsis available yet.
Familiar Faces, Mixed Feelings
1980
7.2Two women decide to exchange lives after getting into contact through a newspaper ad.
A Month Later
1987
8.0Little boy Kees is based on the famous classical masterpiece by Theo Thijssen and deals with a twelve year old Amsterdam schoolboy who grows up at the end of the 19th century in the Jordaan (part of Amsterdam. Kees Bakels is a dreamer who seeks refuge from reality with wild imagination where he dares more than in real life. Through his fathers illness and his young love for Rosa Overbeek he develops himself as someone who acts and assumes responsibility.
Young Kees
2003
4.2The failed poet Wessel Franken trades his career in poetry for a career as director of a publicity agency.
Every Day's a Holiday
1976
6.3This melodramatic film follows Eline Vere, as she attempts to break free from the confines of her narrow existence in The Hague through three tumultuous and ultimately disastrous courtships. Adaptation of Louis Couperus' novel Eline Vere.
Eline Vere
1991
4.0A merchant marries a woman who looks exactly like his former lover, who died because of him. But the man has a morbid jealousy, he sees a rival in every man. Then he asks an attractive man to seduce his wife for money.
Affair Play
1995
10.0The Detour is about a young woman travelling through Europe in search of herself and the truth of life. It is based on meetings between goatherd Joanna and Austrian author and playwright Thomas Bernhard. Joanna is lost after her boyfriend dumps her at a Women's Relief Centre in Rotterdam. She works in a library and visits the theatre, where she first sees a play by Thomas Bernhard. Bernhard's philosophy permeates Joanna's thoughts. When Camille invites her to visit the French Pyrenees, she accepts. On the way, she decides to visit Bernhard in Austria. She attempts to start a relationship with him and thereby finds herself.
the Detour
2000
5.0A female writer bases her newest book on the affair she had with her publisher in this Dutch drama. Lin is the glamorous writer who finds herself pulled out of a canal by two riverboat men. Her story is told in flashback. Her recently published book "Wildgroei"(Dutch for "Wild Growth") chronicled her one-sided passion for her publisher Emile who chose Lin's sister Marot instead.
It Will Never Be Spring
1994
6.4Two friends meet again in the autumn of their lives. They have not seen each other for years, but soon find their renewed friendship put to the test when one of them falls ill and the other loses his newfound love.
Friendship
2001
6.7At the end of the turbulent fifties, the first black South African top-level footballer, Steve Mokone, came to Almelo to play for Heracles. He was a great success and became friends with the impetuous Felix Verbeek, who was only fifteen years old. Mokone told Felix that he should follow his heart and that he absolutely should not accept the bleak future his father had in mind for him. IN AN EVENTFUL YEAR, FELIX HAS A TERRIBLE QUARREL WITH HIS FATHER'S BOSS, GETS HIS FIRST GIRLFRIEND AND BECOMES THE SUPPORT AND CONFIDENCE OF THE FIRST AFRICAN STAR IN THE NETHERLANDS: STEVE-"THE BLACK METEOR"-MOKONE
De Zwarte Meteoor
2000


