In 1978, Van de Velde prematurely left the film academy and in 1980, along with fellow students Leon de Winter en René Seegers, he founded the First Amsterdam Film Association. One of the films this collective produced was the documentary Junkieverdriet (Junkiekl, the life story of the Flemish poet Jotie T' Hooft, a notorious drug addict who made several suicide attempts and died of a cocaine overdose in 1977 - at the age of 21. Apart from archive footage of a TV interview with the author, the film incorporates interviews with relatives and friends, as well as images of the surroundings in which the young poet lived.
