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In afwachting van

Documentary, 2003, 90 min.

Directors Maarten Schmidt and Thomas Doebele were allowed access to the Penitentiary Institution in Tilburg, where annually some three thousand illegal aliens are housed, pending their possible deportation. The filmmakers registered the dead-end life in this prison and the incongruities in the Dutch immigration policy. All immigrants talk candidly in front of the camera, also during conversations with repatriation officials. In the process, the refugees get an individual face and background, but not a name, like the Liberian man who effortlessly dishes up the story of his sad, ten-year-long life in various refugee centres: Zeewolde, Lunteren, Bilthoven, Drachten, Ter Apel, Burgh-Haamstede. In 1998, he was put on the train to Rotterdam by the police. Now he has been arrested. `I'm 45 years old. My life has been frittered away. Those ten years were enough.'

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Director

Producer

Cinematographer - DoP

Editor

Location sound recordist