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A Family

Generation 14plus 2026
© Jasper Wolf
Fourteen-year-old Eli and 16-year-old Nina are both suffering in the breakdown of their parents’ once loving marriage. In the battle for custody, the siblings must express their wishes, fears and feelings to a judge. While Nina wants to get away from the family as soon as possible, Eli longs for everything to return to how it was before. Their desires are miles apart. Told in two chapters, the film follows the same three weeks twice: first from Nina’s perspective and then from Eli’s. These mirrored timelines reveal how the same moments can be lived, felt and understood in entirely different ways. Eli and Nina retreat into their own isolated worlds until Nina begins to realise that her younger brother has been carrying the same weight all along, quietly, invisibly, beside her. He has always been there; it is only now that she is truly seeing him. Eli, meanwhile, comes to understand that Nina’s turning away from him was not a rejection but an act of survival and she has been struggling as much as he has. Beneath their opposing choices lies the same longing: for love, recognition and emotional security. A Family reveals how love can fracture under pressure but still find its way back home.
by Mees Peijnenburg (Director, Screenplay), Bastiaan Kroeger (Screenplay)
with Finn Vogels, Celeste Holsheimer, Carice van Houten, Pieter Embrechts Netherlands / Belgium 2026 Dutch 89' Colour World premiere recommendation: 14 years and up

With

  • Finn Vogels (Eli)
  • Celeste Holsheimer (Nina)
  • Carice van Houten (Maria)
  • Pieter Embrechts (Jacob)

Crew

Director Mees Peijnenburg
Screenplay Bastiaan Kroeger, Mees Peijnenburg
Cinematography Jasper Wolf
Editing Imre Reutelingsperger
Music Annelotte Coster
Sound Design Arnout Colaert
Production Design Jorien Sont
Costumes Minke Lunter, John van Vlerken
Make-Up Lindelotte van der Meer
Producers Iris Otten, Nathalie van der Burg, Sander van Meurs
Executive Producers Carice van Houten, Remy Mulder
Co-Producers Michiel Dhont, Lukas Dhont, Martien Vlietman

Produced by

Juliet at Pupkin

Amsterdam, Netherlands

Pupkin

Co-produced by

The Reunion

Waasmunster, Belgium

World Sales

Paradise City Sales

Paris, France

Photos

Mees Peijnenburg

©Alexandra Fleurantin

The London based director is celebrated as one of the biggest filmmaking talents to emerge from the Netherlands in recent years. Born in Tokyo in 1989, he studied at the European Film College in Denmark and graduated from the Netherlands Film Academy in 2013. Mees was twice nominated for a Crystal Bear at the Berlinale for his short films A Hole in my Heart and Even Cowboys Get to Cry. Mees won two Golden Calves (Netherlands Film Festival) for his film We Will Never Be Royals. He was selected for the Cinéfondation Résidence by the Cannes Film Festival, where he wrote his first feature film, Paradise Drifters, which premiered at the Berlinale in 2020. 

Filmography

2013 Cowboys janken ook (Even Cowboys Get to Cry); short film, Berlinale 2013 2014 Un creux dans mon cœur (A Hole in My Heart); short film, Berlinale 2015 2015 Geen koningen in ons bloed (We Will Never Be Royals) 2020 Paradise Drifters; Berlinale 2020 2026 A Family; Berlinale 2026

Bio- & filmography as of Berlinale 2026