Freek de Jonge intends to stage one last magnificent show, to once again draw in the crowd. The performance of his life, in which he confronts various painful events, descending to the depths of his soul. This way he hopes to rekindle the drive of thirty years ago: has he done things right, will he be able to make up for the times he failed as a man and as an artist?
Director
A poignant documentary about the history of a family haunted by World War II. On the basis of archive material, documents left behind by her great-aunt Ro Miller and stories told by her father Eli Asser, Hella de Jonge reconstructs what happened to her family during, before and after the war. How they became aware of the danger, how they fled, how they hid, how they survived and how they died. And how, after the war was over, it continued to weigh on their lives. In Hella’s words, “The doctor advised my mother to have children, to help cope with the incredible loss.” A portrait of her grandmother, who died in the war, still hangs in her father’s living room. The filmmaker’s relationship with him has always been difficult. Fragments of memory never before discussed run together during an emotional journey embarked upon together by father and daughter to places of significance in the history of their family.
Costume Design
From March to June 1983, the Dutch comedian Freek de Jonge performed his fifth solo performance: De mythe ('The myth'). In the programme booklet he included the following quote from Polish-British anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski: 'Myth as it exists in a savage community, that is in its living primitive form, is not merely a story told but a reality lived.'
