Cannes Contenders 2026: The Netherlands

A$AP Rocky Punk Rocky

Dutch film craftsmanship on a global stage. Director Folkert Verdoorn has been quietly building one of the most distinct visual voices in international music film, and this one makes the case loud and clear. The direction is confident, the world-building immersive, with each shot as a statement of its own. 

There's a difference between a director who executes a brief and one who elevates it.

There's a difference between a director who executes a brief and one who elevates it. This is the latter. The fact that it took a Dutch filmmaker to give A$AP Rocky his most visually compelling recent work says something both about the director and about the state of the industry.

KPN Everyone Except

Most anti-bullying campaigns talk to the victim. This one doesn't. By targeting everyone except the bully - the silent bystanders, the ones who watch and scroll - KPN reframes the entire conversation around complicity. 

Built with enough craft to make the discomfort land.

That's a sharp strategic move, and the creative follows through with conviction. It's a campaign that understands how online culture actually works: not as a binary between aggressor and target, but as a system sustained by passivity. At the heart is a beautiful but uncomfortable music video and song by S10. Built with enough craft to make the discomfort land.

Chiesi The Sound of COPD

800,000 people in the Netherlands live with COPD. Eighteen die from it every day, and yet the disease remains largely unknown, its first symptoms go unrecognised for years. The Family and Chiesi didn't make an awareness campaign. They made you hear it. Singer Roxeanne Hazes wrote and recorded Nooit Voorbij, as did real COPD patients, with their damaged lungs. 

Those recordings trained an AI that progressively distorts Hazes' voice: powerful at 100% lung function, fragile and laboured at 60%, barely there at 30%. One song. Three voices. The same melody, just less and less air behind it.

Denk Vooruit NL Goes Dark

How do you prepare 18 million people for a crisis? A government booklet was ready. But a brochure nobody asked for has one destination: the bin. So, instead of advertising the booklet, the campaign from Havas Lemz made the country need it. 

Experience beats information. Every time. 

On November 17th, a coalition of national partners staged a symbolic blackout at train stations, supermarkets and ATMs. A broken TV spot aired simultaneously on all channels. Radio fractured. The country's daily infrastructure made unfamiliar, for one day. The next day, 8.5 million booklets landed on doorsteps, not cold, but expected. 73% kept it. 43% acted. Recall doubled the government benchmark. Experience beats information. Every time.