Mister L.

Thomas Stokmans – The Netherlands, 2025 – 70 minutes – spoken language: Arabic, Chinese (Mandarin), Dutch, Indonesian, Somali, Tigrinya, Turkish, with English subtitles

After falling asleep under a Dutch windmill and being abandoned by a group of fellow travelers, an Asian tourist wakes up completely lost and without all his belongings. While walking through Groningen, he is mistaken for an asylum seeker. Unable to communicate his situation, he soon finds himself in an asylum seekers’ center on a former cruise ship in Amsterdam.

Now stuck in the bureaucracy of his ‘asylum application’, he lives together and amongst the other residents of the ship. Even though he can only communicate non-verbally, Even though he can only communicate non-verbally, he still becomes friends with them. The refugees tell him their stories and he can understand them on an emotional level. This hybrid film is inspired by true events and is developed with non-actors and refugees who play themselves on the ship where they actually reside.

The screening is followed by a Q&A with director Thomas Stokmans. His films are known for their highly personal style and explore human interaction through nonverbal communication. They convey a nostalgic and poetic atmosphere and have been selected for the International Film Festival Rotterdam, among others. Stokmans works primarily with non-actors and increasingly explores socially critical and politically engaged themes. He continues this approach in Mister L., his feature film debut, which premiered at the Movies that Matter Festival.

With the On Tour program, Movies that Matter organizes screenings with in-depth programmes in The Netherlands and online. They do this in collaboration with a diverse array of organizations and companies. Among other things, they also organise the annual Movies that Matter festival in The Hague.