With personal stories from Dutch Indians
Director: Hetty Naaijkens-Retel Helmrich (a.o. Buitenkampers) - Actors: a.o. Yvonne Keuls, Adriaan van Dis, Wieteke van Dort (all as themselves)
Length: 123 minutes - Language: Dutch
- Subtitles: NvT
de Volkskrant: "...loving portrait that shows the resilience of the Indonesian Dutch."
The Netherlands has more than two million people with roots in the former Dutch East Indies. Of these, more than 300,000 were forcibly repatriated to the Netherlands after World War II. For Dutch East Indies, Moluccan families and Peranakan Chinese, it meant a new beginning in a country that did not always welcome them with open arms.
By means of collage animations, music, 8mm archive footage and personal stories of well-known Dutch East Indies people, such as Yvonne Keuls, Adriaan van Dis and Wieteke van Dort, the film shows how they had to build a new existence. In many cases very successfully.
Filmmaker Hetty Naaijkens-Retel Helmrich illustrates their stories with typical immaterial heritage: from the Indonesian rice table to music, from visual culture to the Nijmegen Four Day Marches. Anak Indië is a film about resilience, identity and a shared past; a past that is still tangible and visible in today's Netherlands.
