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De Amerikaan die ik nooit geweest ben

Short documentary, 2004, 45 min.

De Amerikaan die ik nooit geweest ben (The American I Never Was) consists of a novel, a website, a radio documentary and a road movie in the form of a photo documentary. In it, the first-person narrator looks for the area where his roots are, but where he never lived - the state of New Jersey on the east coast of the United States. Chris Keulemans' comment and Rob Smits' photographs present a disconcerting portrait of a region that, since it became known that the hijackers of the attacks of 11 September 2001 had lived there for months, is ridden with fear of the terrorist peril and other anti-American activities. Meanwhile, the images of the industrial wasteland, the toxic waste dumps, the decrepit bathing resorts and the dismal slums sketch a country that is so decayed and mouldered on the inside that it threatens to collapse on its own accord. Now and then, some moving pictures pass by, but mainly they are noxiously still - image after image.

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