
Mama Agatha
Every year around 6,000 migrant women in the Netherlands learn to ride a bicycle, a skill many never had the chance to pick up in their home countries but one that turns out to be essential for daily life in a country built around cycling. The film follows Agatha, a Congolese woman who has made it her mission to teach other migrant women how to balance, pedal, and navigate traffic on two wheels. Scenes of wobbling first attempts in parking lots and quiet streets give way to women riding confidently to work, school runs, and appointments they once had to reach on foot or by bus. Interviews with the women themselves explain what the bicycle actually changes: independence, faster commutes, and a smaller version of feeling Dutch. The film treats cycling not as a quirky national habit but as a gatekeeper skill, one that determines how easily a newcomer can move through the country's daily rhythms, and Agatha's classes as a quiet, practical form of integration work.