Provocative Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, the great-grandnephew of painter Vincent van Gogh, was shot and stabbed to death on an Amsterdam street on November 2. Following a shootout, the police arrested a 26-year-old man of Moroccan-Dutch nationality, who is supposed to have ties to radical Muslim groups. Van Gogh was 47 years old.
The director had received death threats because of his English-language short film Submission: Part I, a critique of the treatment of women under Islam. Shown on Dutch television in August, Submission was reviled by the Netherlands' Muslim community, including some Muslim women's groups.
Among van Gogh's other movies are Luger (1982), starring Thom Hoffman; the drama Blind Date (1996); the thriller Baby Blue (2001); and the political thriller 06/05 (2004), inspired by the events that led to the assassination of populist, far-right Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn on May 6, 2002.