About us

 

ICU Documentaries was founded in 2005 by independent Dutch filmmakers Hans Hermans and Martin Maat. They have been working for Dutch Public Television since 1995. Hans Hermans and Martin Maat focus on international relations and have produced acclaimed documentary films such as Justice for Sergei, Pyongyang Crescendo and Sarajevo Revisited for an international audience.

Our most recent project is the four-episode documentary series The World in Ter Apel for Dutch Public Television. In the year the Dutch cabinet resigned over a dispute on asylum policy, ICU Documentaries obtained exclusive access to a world normally carefully shielded from the outside. For a year, we followed the process asylum seekers go through from the moment they first report to apply for asylum until the moment they are granted asylum or are told that they have to leave the Netherlands. The World in Ter Apel offers an unprecedented insight into the heart of the asylum crisis and also shows the conditions on the life-threatening escape routes before refugees apply for asylum in the Netherlands. It will be broadcast in January of 2024 bij Dutch public broadcaster BNNVARA.

In 2022 we produced our documentary series A Porcelain Wedding on the events leading up to the wedding of crown prince Willem-Alexanders and Argentinian Máxima Zorreguieta, on 2-2-2001. On the eve of the 20th wedding anniversary we looked back on what happened behind closed doors and revealed secret documents in order to shed a new light on this important event in Dutch history.

In 2021 we produced the documentary series The Farmers Republic for Dutch public broadcaster BNNVARA. In this four-episode serie we focus on the conflict between the environment and agricultural interests and on the divide between the city and the countryside. The series was broadcast in March and April 2021, on the 2nd channel of Dutch public TV.

In 2020 we produced the international documentary Pristina Revisited. A story on the impact of the war in Kosovo on the ordinary citizens of that country.  As young reporters, we covered the war that was raging in the heart of Europe the end of the previous century. Twenty years later, we returned, looking for the people we filmed during the conflict. Pristina Revisited. A film on life after war. A search for the people who witnessed the horror. A story on grief, on irreparable loss, yet also a story on hope for a better future.  A 60-minute version of this documentary was broadcast (Dutch title: Weerzien in Pristina) on July 5, 2020 by BNNVARA at the second channel of Dutch Public Television.

Earlier in 2020, we produced the four-episode, documentary series Hoog Water (High Tides) for Dutch Public Television. The series focuses on the mass evacuation of 250.000 inhabitants of the eastern part of the Netherlands in 1995, as the country was facing the worst flooding of the 20th century.
After weeks of heavy rain and rising tides in the rivers Rhine, Waal and Meuse, the Dutch government worried the country’s system of dikes might collapse and ordered a mass evacuation of population centres. High Tides investigates the impact this national crisis had on the lives of those involved.

In 2019 we produced the 6-episode documentary series In Name of the People. A series of six intriguing portraits of populist leaders of Latin American counties, such as Evita Perón, Evo Morales, Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavéz. This series was broadcast on the second channel of Dutch Public Television in the summer of 2019.

In 2018 we produced the series Typhoon in America on leading Dutch hiphop artist Typhoon who traveled through the US on a quest for knowledge and inspiration.
Performing artist Typhoon regularly speaks out against racism and has been inspired by the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King. From afar in The Netherlands he had been trying to keep track of news reports on police brutality, inequality and the fight of the activists of #BlackLivesMatter. Fifty years after Dr. King was brutally murdered in Memphis, Typhoon traveled to Boston, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., Charlottesville, New Orleans, Memphis and Saint Louis. While on the road he met with modern day activists, victims of racism and exclusion in present day America and of course with fellow artists who speak out.

In 2017 Martin and Hans produced a compelling documentary series on Che Guevara, who died in 1967, not knowing his portrait would worldwide be used for political, commercial and even spiritual purposes. But who is the man behind the myth? And what is the significance of the revolution he brought to several countries, fifty years after his death? These are the central questions in our four-part documentary series Che; a compelling story about the wanderings of an iconic revolutionary and a search for his social legacy in the countries he wanted to change.

A year before producing Che we made the 4-episode documentary series Varia Americana. In this documentary series for Dutch public television, we follow in the footsteps of famous Dutch statesman Abraham Kuyper, who travelled through the United States in 1898.
In each episode we examine the interface between Kuyper’s analysis in the past and urgent developments in the present. The first episode aired this year on May 11, on the second channel of Dutch Public Television (NPO2).

Varia America is a sequel to the 8-episode documentary series Around the Mediterranean Sea (Om de Oude Wereldzee). Famous Dutch statesman Abraham Kuyper travelled through 16 countries around the Mediterranean in 1905. Kuyper was fascinated by the rise of Islam and wondered what consequences this might have for Europe.

Other recent projects of ICU Documentaries include the documentary series Kidnapped in… (Gegijzeld) for Dutch Public Broadcaster IKON. A series of firsthand oral history accounts of people who have been kidnapped in countries like Yemen, Indonesia, Colombia and Afghanistan.