Director
Tim Oliehoek
In The Menten Case (De Zaak Menten), we follow journalist Hans Knoop—editor-in-chief of Accent, a weekly magazine affiliated with the newspaper De Telegraaf—as he becomes increasingly personally involved in the pursuit of Pieter Menten, a war criminal who had yet to be convicted. Menten has been living for years in his vast villa in the Gooi region when he decides to put a portion of his art collection up for auction. This prompts an interview in De Telegraaf regarding his collection. Israeli journalist Chaviv Kanaan discovers the interview through the Dutch correspondent Dr. Henriëtte Boas. Kanaan accuses Menten of the execution of Jews—including many of his own family members—in the Polish villages of Podhorodce and Uricz. Through Boas, Kanaan makes contact with Knoop and reveals that, in 1943, Menten had three railway carriages filled with stolen paintings transported to the Netherlands; thus, the "Menten case" is born. Knoop digs deep into the story, but Menten does not go down without a fight.