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29 Jan – 8 Feb 2026

David Verbeek

David VERBEEK (1980, Netherlands) studied film, photography and philosophy at the New School University in New York and graduated in film directing at the Dutch Film Academy in 2005. While studying, he finished his first feature, Beat (2004), which was selected for IFFR. In the ten years that followed, he made a total of 6 international feature films that have granted him global recognition in the world of contemporary art-house cinema. Titles such as Shanghai Trance (2008) went to festivals around the world and had a big release in China, where it was screened in 240 movie theatres in 88 cities. His film Club Zeus (2011), also set in Shanghai and Mandarin spoken, won the Return of the Tiger Award at the International Film Festival Rotterdam. In 2010, his third feature film, R U THERE, was selected for the main section of the Cannes Film Festival, where it was part of that year’s prestigious Un Certain Regard programme. Next to his cinematic work, Verbeek has been active as a video artist and photographer. In recent years, Verbeek has made several more feature films, such as his thriller Dead & Beautiful (2021) and the internationally praised and awarded documentary Trapped in the City of a Thousand Mountains (2018).

Filmography

Beat (2004), Yu-Lan (2004, short), alt.suicideholiday.net (2005, short), Melody Z (2007, short), Shanghai Trance (2008), R U There (2010), Club Zeus (2011), Immortelle (2013, short), How to Describe a Cloud (2013), Full Contact (2015), An Impossibly Small Object (2018), Trapped in the City of a Thousand Mountains (2018, short doc), Dead & Beautiful (2021), Safe.Self.Sense (2022, installation)

More info: David Verbeek 

David Verbeek op IFFR

  • Full Contact

    David Verbeek | 105' | Netherlands | None

    An introverted soldier enters his own tormented subconscious, respectively portrayed as an island and a boxing school, desperately looking for full contact through sex and…
  • Safe.Self.Sense

    David Verbeek | 37' | Taiwan | World premiere

    Through dance, image and sound the collective shaping and loss of the pandemic is explored.
  • Dead & Beautiful

    David Verbeek | 98' | Netherlands | World premiere

    After a weird night, five super-rich friends find out they are vampires. Panic! Is this really what they have become?
  • Melody Z

    David Verbeek | 20' | China | World premiere

    Melancholy portrait of two moths in hypermodern Shanghai.
  • Shanghai Trance

    David Verbeek | 120' | China | World premiere

    Young Dutch director made an (almost) entirely Chinese film. In a city where everything is new, an outsider is in any case no more out…
  • Immortelle

    David Verbeek | 17' | Taiwan | World premiere

    Experimental dance film in which two ex-lovers deal with their relationship’s collapse. While the body dances, the heavy heart follows.
  • How to Describe a Cloud

    David Verbeek | 80' | Netherlands | World premiere

    A young woman in Taipei is confronted with the blindness of her mother who is convinced she has a sixth sense. Shot with little facilities,…
  • Beat

    David Verbeek | 75' | Netherlands | World premiere

    Making a minimal low budget DV feature in Rotterdam. About a modern yuppy’s burn-out, urban alienation and other issues we mainly know from Asian cine
  • Full Contact

    David Verbeek | 105' | Croatia | None

    An introverted soldier enters his own tormented subconscious, respectively portrayed as an island and a boxing school, desperately looking for full co
  • Club Zeus

    David Verbeek | 75' | China | World premiere

    Made as a guerilla project while waiting for finance for R U There. Verbeek, a Tiger candidate in 2008 with Shanghai Trance, proves that his…