Offbeat guide to film, sound & performance festivals in the Netherlands
A guide to recurring film, sound, and performance festivals in the Netherlands -- from underground cinema nights to large-scale music gatherings and international dance and theater. Alphabetical within each category.
Amsterdam · Film
Amsterdam Independent Film Festival
Annual October festival at LAB111 with a deliberately unglamorous setup: free screenings, no red carpets, no industry noise. Focuses on underground and independent international cinema, with a tradition of paying tribute to a director's body of work alongside the competition program. Small, sincere, and worth a look.
CinemAsia
The only pan-Asian film festival in the Netherlands, held each spring at Studio/K and other city venues. Founded in 2004, it focuses on independent and arthouse cinema from across Asia and the diaspora -- films that rarely reach Dutch distribution. Combines screenings with panels, food, and community events.
IDFA
The International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam is the world's largest documentary festival, held each November across venues around the city. Mainstream by the standards of this guide, but too significant to leave out. The industry program is enormous; the public program is where the interesting screenings live.
IQMF
International Queer & Migrant Film Festival, founded in 2015 at LAB111. Sits at the intersection of queer and migrant identity -- a more specific lens than general LGBTQ+ festivals. Around thirty features, shorts, and documentaries, alongside art exhibitions, talks, and the IQMF Academy talent program for emerging filmmakers. Usually in December, though dates vary by edition.
Roze Filmdagen
Amsterdam's LGBTQ+ film festival, running since 1996 and now one of the largest in Europe. Eleven days in March at Het Ketelhuis on the Westergas terrain, with 140+ films spanning features, documentaries, and shorts from around forty countries. Broad in scope, community-rooted, and consistently well-programmed.
Sprouts Film Festival
Ecocinema and debut fiction festival held each June across multiple Amsterdam venues including Studio/K and De Uitkijk. Fiction and hybrid films only -- three parallel competitions: eco features, eco shorts, and debut features with a socially critical edge. Includes an art expo and audiovisual performances alongside the screenings. Young, politically minded, and growing.
VERS Film Festival
Annual festival for emerging Dutch and Belgian filmmakers, running for nearly thirty years at LAB111 each March. Three days of short films -- fiction, animation, documentary -- judged by an industry jury with real prize money attached. Alongside the screenings: workshops, masterclasses, a film quiz, and enough networking to last the year. Small, focused, and genuinely useful for new talent.
Amsterdam · Performance
Holland Festival
The largest international performing arts festival in the Netherlands, held each June across Amsterdam venues since 1947. Music, theater, dance, opera, film -- programmed around a single associate artist each edition. Recent choices have included ANOHNI, Ryuichi Sakamoto, and Hildur Guðnadóttir. Institutional in scale, but the programming earns its place.
Julidans
Two weeks in July, 40+ performances across fourteen Amsterdam venues with Internationaal Theater Amsterdam at its center. International contemporary dance: established names alongside emerging choreographers, politically engaged, formally restless. Running since 1991 and consistently one of the better reasons to be in Amsterdam in summer.
Nederlands Theater Festival
Eleven days in September across Amsterdam theaters, presenting the best Dutch and Flemish productions of the past season -- drama, mime, cabaret, performance, youth theater. Runs simultaneously with the Amsterdam Fringe Festival, which operates on an open call and gives experimental and emerging makers their own parallel program. The two together make for a dense and varied theater week.
Amsterdam · Sound
Automatic Noise Festival
Two-night shoegaze and dream pop festival at Cinetol in January, organized by Dutch indie label Automatic Music. Small, focused, and deeply committed to a sound that gets little festival love elsewhere in the city. Six editions in and still feels like a secret.
Dekmantel
Annual multi-day festival in the Amsterdamse Bos each August, with opening concerts at Muziekgebouw and BIMHUIS. Mostly boom-boom techno and house, but the lineup occasionally hides something genuinely strange -- an avant-garde percussionist, an experimental live act, a set that has no business being there and is the better for it. Worth checking the full program before writing it off.
FIBER Festival
Interdisciplinary festival at the intersection of digital art and electronic music, held each spring across multiple Amsterdam venues -- Orgelpark, BIMHUIS, Garage Noord, and others. Installations, performances, club nights, and talks, all tied to a yearly theme. Now in its eleventh edition and still one of the more genuinely curious festivals in the city.
Minimal Music Festival
Four days of minimalist music at Muziekgebouw and BIMHUIS each April, tracing the lineage from La Monte Young, Terry Riley, and Steve Reich to the adventurous makers of today. Concerts, installations, and a festival café with free fringe programming. The crowd is recognizable, the programming is serious, and the room goes quiet when the music starts.
SOTU Festival
Sounds of the Underground: five days in April across Amsterdam's alternative venues -- De Tanker, Het Groene Veld, Vondelbunker, Filmhuis Cavia -- a different location each night. Noise, improvisation, avant-garde, experimental electronics. Self-funded artist collective running since 2012, each edition built around a theme. Very much the underground it claims to be.
Sonic Acts
Biennial arts organization and festival at the intersection of sound, moving image, art, and theory. Founded in 1994, now running as a two-month program every other year across twenty Amsterdam venues, with an intensive festival weekend in the middle. Each edition builds around a single theme. Not a night out; more of a sustained encounter with ideas.
Netherlands
Down The Rabbit Hole
Three-day festival in the Groene Heuvels park near Nijmegen, held each July. Indie, alternative, and world music across multiple stages in a hilly, forested landscape with a lake. The headliners tend mainstream, but the undercard regularly surprises -- and the setting is genuinely beautiful. Worth a look at the full lineup before deciding.
IFFR
The International Film Festival Rotterdam runs for twelve days at the end of January across multiple venues in Rotterdam. One of the largest film festivals in Europe, with a genuinely adventurous programme -- independent and experimental films, emerging talent, media art, and a strong track record for discovering work before anyone else does. The industry side is enormous; the public screenings are the reason to go.
Le Guess Who?
Four days in November in Utrecht, taking over concert halls, churches, warehouses, and canal cellars across the city. Avant-garde, jazz, experimental pop, world music, drone, noise -- the breadth is real, and the curation is sharp. Each edition invites guest curators to shape part of the program. One of the most consistently adventurous lineups in Europe, and the city makes for a good weekend regardless.
Noorderzon
Eleven days in August in Groningen's Noorderplantsoen park -- theater, dance, music, circus, and literature from the Netherlands and abroad, spread across tents, open-air stages, and city venues. Rooted in the same spirit as Oerol: performing arts treated as a public and social act rather than a commodity. Around 130,000 visitors, many of whom are there for the whole thing.
Oerol
Ten days in June on the Wadden island of Terschelling. Theater, dance, music, and visual art performed in dunes, forests, beaches, barns, and bunkers -- the entire island becomes the stage. You get around by bike. Founded in 1982, now Europe's largest site-specific arts festival. The ferry books out months in advance; plan accordingly.
Rewire
Four days in April in The Hague, spread across concert halls, churches, galleries, clubs, and bookshops across the city centre. Contemporary electronic music, neo-classical, new jazz, experimental pop, sound art, and multidisciplinary work -- connected by a commitment to adventurous programming over genre. Commissioned works, club nights, talks, and installations alongside the concerts. One of the best festivals in the Netherlands, full stop.
The Hague International Sound Art Festival
Annual three-day sound art festival in The Hague, organized by Studio LOOS at Zaal 3. Free jazz, freely improvised music, electroacoustic performance, radio art, spoken word, and dance -- each edition built around a political or social theme. Small, serious, and genuinely committed.
TodaysArt
One-weekend festival in The Hague at the intersection of art, electronic music, and technology. Audiovisual performances, installations, and club nights spread across venues in the city centre. Lean program, high density of interesting things per hour.
SPRING
Ten days in May in Utrecht, taking over theaters and public spaces across the city. Interdisciplinary dance, theater, and performance with a sharp focus on new and urgent work -- SPRING co-produces many of the pieces it shows, often premiering them here. Politically awake, formally adventurous, and one of the better platforms for emerging international makers.
This guide is published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license (CC BY 4.0).
Last updated: 09-05-2026