Watching: Amsterdam Stories USA

Overview

Fifteen towns in North America bear the name of the Dutch capital. From east to west, from New York, once Nieuw Amsterdam, to California, Rogier van Eck and Rob Rombout, two filmmakers of Dutch descent, link them by following that one name. Like an open sesame, it opens up small-town America, its reality and its imagination: sheriffs, poets, cowboys, a Vietnam DJ, a civil-rights veteran. An unfamiliar, intimate, sometimes strange America, in which the filmmakers are protagonists among others. Six hours, in four chapters: East, South, Midwest, West.