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De groene hemel

Short documentary, 2007, 50 min.

In an aerial view, it looks like a graveyard: the rectangular tarpaulins protecting the seedbeds and the stakes indicating which garden plot belongs to which pupil. But it is not a garden of death, it is a garden of life. On one hectare of land in Amsterdam-West, Bert Ydema has taught thousands of children the art of gardening for forty years. In the last year before his retirement, a camera crew follows him. Some children do not even know a potato is dug up from the soil, and they dislike the soil because it is teeming with scary animals. Ydema tries to familiarise the city children with nature, giving them insight into the cycle of the seasons, the interaction between man and his environment and the sun as the supreme source of energy.
While Ydema patiently and animatedly instructs the children, he expresses his reflections in a voice-over. These are mostly of an educational nature, but also refer to the autumn of his own life.

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