Mata Hari (1h 33min.)

In an attempt to mend his strained relationship with his then fourteen-year-old daughter Calista, Hollywood star David Carradine cast her in his 1975 film about the legendary Mata Hari. Over the course of fifteen years, he watched her grow up in the title role of the Frisian spy, yet the film was never completed. As fiction and reality increasingly blurred over the years, the complex relationship between the mercurial Carradine and his now-adult daughter—who seemed able to communicate only when the camera was rolling—evolved. In Mata Hari (2025), directors Joe Beshenkovsky and James Smith use archival footage—including material from the Frisian Film & Audio Archive—to tell the chaotic story of a passion project gone off the rails: a comic and intimate tribute to memory and the unifying power of cinema.

Mata Hari premiered at the Venice Biennale, where it won the award for Best Documentary on Cinema. Its Dutch premiere took place at Filmhuis Slieker in Leeuwarden, where parts of the film were also shot. Following the screening at the Noordelijk Film Festival, there will be a Q&A with Alexander Burger of the Frisian Film & Audio Archive, and Calista Carradine will also be in attendance.