VPRO

At The International Butler Academy in Simpelveld, The Netherlands, students from all over the world and of all ages are taught the tricks of the butler trade. The film follows six students during their training. What motivates them to choose this servile profession?

Koolhoven's view is a series of film lectures given by film director and cinephile Martin Koolhoven. Using scenes from his favorite feature films, Koolhoven shares his love for cinema with viewers. No dry critiques and academic treatises, but enthusiastic speeches and inspired observations: Koolhoven is above all an enthusiast.

Series about the life and work of Queen Beatrix, offering a meticulous dramatised interpretation of historical events. The series opens in the Royal tour bus, a few minutes before the attack on Queen’s Day 2009, and goes on to show other tough and fine moments in the monarch’s life. Is she really the business manager on the throne that the media often call her? What is she like as a mother and grandmother? How did she cope with her husband’s depressions and illness?

The ancient Silk Road, the trade center of the world, once ran through Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Pakistan. Ruben Terlou and Jelle Brandt Corstius explore the area in which the world has renewed interest due to its strategic location and enormous energy reserves.

Who are the winners and losers of Brexit? Former United Kingdom correspondent Tim de Wit returns to reflect on his own role as a journalist and to investigate what became of the Brexit promises. Has migration decreased? Has healthcare improved?

In the eight-part series Allah in Europe, Jan Leyers is looking for the face of Islam in Europe. Is there such a thing as a European, enlightened version of Islam growing and is that what Muslims themselves want?

China is playing an increasingly important role worldwide. Under President Xi Jinping, substantial investments are being made in communication and cooperation and industrious Chinese people are settling abroad in large numbers. Documentary maker and China expert Ruben Terlou visits them in the new VPRO travel series ‘The World of the Chinese’. Who are they, what do they want to achieve and what impact does their presence have on the local population?

Sint Hubertusberg is the final Jiskefet series, set in a bleak and surreal retirement home. It is a tragicomic satire of elderly care, blending absurd humor with a poignant, often painful realism.

By living in The Netherland, you take part in a socioeconomic system. How we live, earn our money or deal with mental health care; the options are limited and largely determined by others. Whether we like it or not. But there are people that do things differently, people that deliberately choose to live outside forementioned preconditioned systems. Who are these people, that challenge and oppose the norm?

In Europa is a series of television documentaries on Europe in the 20th century, based on the book with the same name by Dutch writer and historian Geert Mak. The series had a budget of 4 million euro and was cofinanced by the Dutch Ministry of Interior Relations. Episodes are available for viewing on the official site. First broadcast on Nederland 2 from 2007 to 2009, quite a few locations important in European history are shown throughout the series, both historical and current. After two episodes the Flemish public channel bought the series, starting broadcasts on January 8, 2008. Swedish public channel Sveriges Television bought the series as well, starting broadcasts from January 2009. Croatian public television also bought the series and begun broadcasting from late 2011 through 2012. Although the series is mainly in Dutch, many of the episodes can be understood, as interviews with eyewitnesses or sons or daughters of contemporary figures tend to be in English.

Jelle Brandt Corstius is traveling through India. Whereas he previously attempted to explain Russia as an expert in the series From Moscow to Murmansk and From Moscow to Magadan, he is now trying to understand India as a stranger. The country has more poor people, 426 million, than the 26 poorest African countries combined. But there is also enormous wealth. Indian conglomerates are buying up Western companies. The biggest challenge for India is not to become more prosperous, but to distribute that prosperity more evenly. Brandt Corstius travels between two extremes across the country. From Bihar, located in the poor east, to Bangalore, the technological giant in the rich southwest.

A dutch tv show to look at the news week.

Paulien Cornelissen, who studied in Japan years ago, goes back to examine the land of the rising sun. Each episode's theme is a unique, almost translatable word from the Japanese language.