The story of Dirty Lines starts in 1987’s Amsterdam, at a time when Dutch society was changing rapidly. Psychology student Marly Salomon takes on a side job working for a brand new firm: Teledutch – a company started by two brothers, Frank and Ramon Stigter, who established Europe’s first erotic telephone lines. Frank and Ramon become rich overnight and Marly finds herself immersed in this wild and rapid transformation. The final years of the Cold War sparked a sense of hope and inspired a new generation to celebrate life to its fullest. Amsterdam became the center of that cultural revolution with a radically new form of music: house and a new love drug: XTC. The erotic phone lines offer the opportunity to experience anonymous sex in a new way, changing the morality of its consumers, but also very much the people creating it.

Doodslag (Dutch for “Manslaughter”) is the story of Max, a paramedic who is repeatedly hindered in performing his duties by loutish behaviour. As his ambulance hurries towards a complicated childbirth, some youths prevent Max from reaching the distressed woman in labour. Spurred on by the emergency and the incendiary words of a TV pundit, he reaches a boiling point and forcefully hits one of the men obstructing his ambulance. Max’s strike has far-reaching, unintended consequences.