Margje de Koning
(Amsterdam, 1964) is a filmmaker and director of Movies That Matter. After finshing her Theatre and Film Studies, she made many documentaries for various broadcasters in The Netherlands and abroad. At Dutch national broadcaster IKON, she was responsible for the Television Department from 2005 and, from 2012, Head of TV, Radio and New Media. When IKON merged into national broadcaster EO in 2016, she was Commisioning Editor Documentaries there. In 2019, she became artistic director of Movies That Matter in The Hague, which screens human rights related films during the annual festival and many other events year-round. In the Writers Unlimited 2025 festival, she moderates a cross-over programme with literature and film.
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Movies that Matter x Writers Unlimited Festival Special: 'Conflict and Identity'
American poet George Abraham feels strongly about the war in Palestine because of his Palestinian roots. They also write from a queer and feminist perspective about the right to exist, gender roles and identity.
Dutch filmmaker Beri Shalmashi has roots in Iranian Kurdistan. Among other things, she has made films about the devastating effects of war in her homeland and a host of other themes. Her most recent film Casting Call is about an actor who feels forced to play a role he does not want to play.
Both will read and show excerpts from their work and engage in conversation with Movies That Matter director Margje de Koning. What is their working method and what are the differences in approach between a writer and a filmmaker? What do they hope to trigger in the reader or viewer with their texts or film? Do they see their work as an indictment or as medicine?
A crossover programme with film and literature, and on art and human rights, organised by Writers Unlimited and Movies that Matter.
George Abraham is a Palestinian American poet, performance artist, and writer. They are the author of When the Arab Apocalypse Comes to America (Haymarket Books, 2026) and Birthright (2020) which won the Arab American Book Award and was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award. They edit for Mizna, a Southwest Asian and North African diasporic literary journal, and are co-editor of HEAVEN LOOKS LIKE US: Palestinian Poetry (Haymarket Books, 2025). Their current projects also include Eve, a performance project with Fargo Tbakhi re-imagining Milton's Paradise Lost through the lens of Palestinian resistance. They currently teach in Amherst College's English department as a Writer-in-Residence.
Beri Shalmashi is a screenwriter, film director and director of Avanti in Almere, which organises talks, debates and symposiums on topical issues. She graduated from the Dutch Film Academy with the documentary Wie niet weg is, is gezien. In 2010, her One Night Stand documentary Mama premieres, with a nomination for the Golden Calf for best television film, which she writes and directs together with Sanne Vogel. From 2012 to 2015, Beri lived in Iraqi Kurdistan, where she taught at the film academy and made the short film Heart on Fire. Beri writes occasionally for de Volkskrant and de Filmkrant, made a cookbook of refugee stories at Rose Stories and realised her interactive documentary BigVillage.
Margje de Koning is a filmmaker and director of Movies That Matter. After finshing her Theatre and Film Studies, she made many documentaries for various broadcasters in The Netherlands and abroad. At Dutch national broadcaster IKON, she was responsible for the Television Department from 2005 and, from 2012, Head of TV, Radio and New Media. When IKON merged into national broadcaster EO in 2016, she was Commisioning Editor Documentaries there. In 2019, she became artistic director of Movies That Matter in The Hague, which screens human rights related films during the annual festival and many other events year-round.
Festival tip: the upcoming Movies That Matter festival edition will take place from 21 up to and including 29 March 2025 at Theater aan het Spui and Filmhuis Den Haag.
