(Netherlands; 92 min.) Filmed in black-and-white and set in Amsterdam, director Timo Veltkamp’s film introduces starving artist Joachim West (Marc van Uchelen), a man who has spent 10 years observing misery in its many forms to write his masterpiece. But when West’s publisher believes that the modern-day Dostoevsky has submitted the novel before committing suicide, the book is passed along to the more financially viable writer Fabian Remarque (Harry van Rijthoven), who has been stymied by writer’s block. As Remarque cements his legacy with the plagiarized novel and garners attention for the Nobel Prize for literature, West goes off the grid and takes up board in the attic of a strip club. But as fate would have it, West’s efforts to escape his failures as a man and writer lead him to the secret he has been trying to avoid for almost two decades. Both men must confront their secrets in the end, leaving Remarque to go to extremes to protect his reputation while West takes the central role in a tragedy worthy of his novel. (JK)

March 8 at 7:15pm, Camera 12; March 10 at 2:45pm, Camera 12; March 12 at 12:15pm, Camera 12