Public Works, also distributed under the title A Noble Intention, is a 2015 Dutch historical drama directed by Joram Lürsen based on a script written by Frank Ketelaar based on the novel of the same name by Thomas Rosenboom. It was based on the book of the same name by Thomas Rosenboom about the troubled construction of the Victoria Hotel in Amsterdam. It was listed as one of eleven films that could be selected as the Dutch submission for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 89th Academy Awards, but it was not nominated. The film won the Pearl Award at the Film by the Sea festival in the Netherlands in 2016.

Plot

The narrative is based on two historic facts: one, the Victoria hotel in Amsterdam, opposite the Central Station, has two nineteenth-century houses incrusted in its facade. Two, the pharmacist Anijs in Hoogeveen was known for his commitment to improve the lives of a group of families of dirt-poor peat-cutters.