A feast of Dutch treats beckon as the historic university city of Utrecht (a comparable "Oxford of the Low Countries," complete with charming canal-side cafes and lively late-night bars, just a half-hour south-east of Amsterdam) hosts the annual Nederlands Film Festival. The event has grown from a modest showcase of national product into a fully-fledged and truly festive celebration of cinema with star guests, nightly talk-shows, well-catalogued retrospectives and young and enthusiastic audiences.

The local equivalent of the Oscars -- the wrily-styled 'Golden Calfs' -- are awarded to Dutch films in 12 categories and the programmes that fill half-a-dozen cinemas and art-houses around the city that once furnished Rome with a Pope also include previews or reviews of top Dutch television series. The event opens on Wednesday 20th September with Wild Mussels an eagerly-anticipated debut feature and runs through September 29th with some 130 shorts, features and documentaries on show.

Tributes are planned to documentarists Heddy Honigmann, Johan Van Der Keuken and Hans Heijnen as well as to the Paris-based Dutch star Maruschka Detmers whose latest film Te quiero (directed by Manuel Poirer) is premiered in the section wittily called "Foreign Affairs," which widens the scope of the festival including films made with Dutch talent abroad, such as Dancer in the Dark (photographed by Dutch master-cameraman Robby Mueller). The latest features by Flemish directors Dominique Deruddere and Luc Pien are also programmed and there are shorts starring Rutger Hauer,a documentary on Paul Verhoeven and perhaps most intriguingly, a feature-length documentary on Lord Alfred Douglas (Oscar Wilde's garcon fatale) called Two loves directed by Jacqueline Van Vugt.

Film professionals are especially well provided for with the Holland Film Meeting (22-25 September), under the expert eye of Ellis Driessen, former head of the Locarno Festival sales office, which facilitates contacts between producers, press and festival directors scouting for Dutch productions, and the Netherlands Production Platform 2000 (23,24 September) which presents some dozen feature projects-in- progress by new or established film-makers for potential co-financiers. The Festival enjoys the support of all official foundations for film and the sponsorship from a certain local lager ensures that screenings and post-film discussions are well lubricated!

Phillip Bergson