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500 Euro

Logline: A Ukrainian refugee working as a helper in the Netherlands has 30 minutes to break her 500-euro banknote and pay her landlord, who falsely accuses her of damaging the apartment and requests 435 euro as compensation.

  • Gin Huang
    Director
  • Gin Huang
    Writer
  • Gin Huang
    Producer
  • Anastasia Blinova
    Key Cast
  • Hansje Görtz
    Key Cast
  • Project Type:
    Short
  • Runtime:
    17 minutes
  • Completion Date:
    June 27, 2025
  • Production Budget:
    1,700 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    Netherlands
  • Country of Filming:
    Netherlands
  • Language:
    Dutch, English, Polish
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Digital Cinema Package:
    Unavailable
Director Biography - Gin Huang

Gin HUANG is an independent filmmaker and writer. His first book, New-Yorkology (2015), was published by Taiwan's China Times Publishing. In the essays, his shrewd observations on the city and its people earned him critical acclaim, which encouraged him to transition to screenplay writing and, following an intensive course at Raindance Film School in London, directing. His debut film, All About My Son (2024), had its world premiere at the 16th LGBT+ Film Festival Poland in 2025.

Telling stories that address our society's problems is Gin's specialty, as he was educated to be an economist, a political scientist and a journalist. He received four-year academic trainings in drawing and painting and later translated the skills into his hobbies of visual design and photography. He never mastered playing the piano, which he grew up studying, but has since developed a sensitivity to music, sound and rhythm — the last is crucial to him in film editing.

Previously, Gin wrote, edited, supervised and managed investment reports for The Economist Group for over ten years. He worked as a research assistant at Goethe University Frankfurt for three years while pursuing a doctorate of economics. He was also an analyst of semiconductor equities at a boutique firm in Manhattan for a year. His career path may look varied, but the core has remained the same: help people, and himself, understand the world through critical words, analytical numbers and artistic images.

Gin now lives in the Netherlands with his partner. When he is not traveling, he is watching a film (most likely a world-cinema one), which is his means to travel far.

Education
2016 University of Warwick MSc Economics
2013 New York University MA Politics
2009 Fu Jen Catholic University BA Journalism

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Director Statement

500 euro. How much is it worth?

Lat summer in Madrid, I saw a desperate Asian lady trying to buy some packs of instant noodles by using a 500 euro note at an Asian grocery store. She failed. My imagination ran wild: How did she get the banknote that hasn't been issued since 2019? Why did she think an ordinary shop would accept it? Does she manage to spend it eventually?

This prompted me to write a story about an immigrant navigating in a strange, adopted country, especially when Europe’s political climate has become harsher to the foreigners in recent years. I changed the protagonist from an Asian to an Eastern European to better reflect the societal landscape of Leiden, where the film was shot, and to make the story politically more relevant to the Dutch context.

500 Euro is also a wake-up call on "what is valuable?". A 500 euro note, backed by the ECB, is supposedly valuable. But when no one accepts it, the banknote is just a piece of useless paper. What is valuable is, after all, a collective recognition, without which nothing is valuable. In the age of rampant financial speculations, from real estate to digital currencies, it’s even more urgent to have independent judgements on what is really valuable, instead of blindly following the trends.

Furthermore, 500 Euro demonstrates the irony of our monetary system. We invented cash, payment cards and crypto to make buy and sell more freely. But to protect these systems, we impose rules and regulations that make ourselves never truly free to use our own money. A 500 euro note is unlikely accepted by a shop. A debit card has a daily cash withdrawal limit. A crypto could be so sketchy that no one treats it as a store of value.

Last but not the least, this film couldn't have been made without the collaboration of local shops in Leiden, which have struggled with the decline of its high street. Therefore, I would like to take this short as an opportunity to highlight the issue and encourage people to shop local. Mortar-and-brick stores are the soul of a city. The death of a high street is the death of a city. Money has surely gone virtual over the past decades whereas transactions need not to follow the same direction and thus narrowly benefit the tech giants.