In Housewitz, daughter and filmmaker Oeke Hoogendijk investigates why her mother Lous has refused to leave her house for decades. Lous is a typical “Yiddish mum”, an eccentric, smart, compelling mother with a cutting sense of humour. In her own created isolation, she travels the world via her TVs and computers. At night, she watches the programme die Schönste Bahnstrecken to keep recurring nightmares at bay. Nightmares that keep taking her back to the day she was taken from her home as a Jewish girl and put on transport. Towards the end of her life, Lous opens the door and lets her daughter in with her cameras.
The filmmaker thus tries to break through the oppressive situation by unravelling her mother’s inner world. Housewitz is a tragicomic film about how war affects a family life and is Hoogendijk’s most personal film to date. The film shows – in Hoogendijk’s well-known witty way – the attempts of a daughter trying to make contact with her war-traumatised mother.
More Forum on European Culture:
European history is steeped in violence, war and genocide. How have these events shaped the Europe of today?
Sasha, a colonel in the Ukrainian army who died due to a heart failure, sees his widow Katia and his stepdaughter Oksana prepare his funeral feast.
De Balie and ITA present a one-off collage performance directed by Ivo van Hove about the state of democracy in Europe. With a special performance of historian Simon Schama.
