The Making of De Jeugd van tegenwoordig

Jan Hulst, Tomas Kaan, Bastiaan Bosma The Netherlands 2025 77 min.

De Jeugd van Tegenwoordig celebrates its 20th anniversary with this film. As you would expect from the band, they did not deliver a traditional band biography, but a quirky, clever, occasionally uncontrolled, often funny film: an improvised making-of of a fake feature film about their creative life, crammed with fragments that recount the highlights of their career.

Four friends—Wiwa, Vjèze Fur, Faberyayo and Bas Bron—once brought together by chaos, have grown into a cultural phenomenon that has set the tone for two decades and left a remarkable mark on the scene. In Belgium as well they have long been one of the most popular Dutch-language hip-hop acts.

With hits such as Watskeburt?!, Sterrenstof, Hollereer, Get Spanish and Shenkie, De Jeugd van Tegenwoordig carved out a wholly distinctive place in the music industry: creative, innovative and laced with humor. As the group builds toward its anniversary concerts at the Ziggo Dome, pivotal moments from their career are brought back to life through actors and archival footage, allowing fact and fiction to blur in playful and at times disorienting ways. Interviews, memories and fabrications flow seamlessly together, painting the portrait of a group that continually reinvents itself.