Harry, Tiny and Sonja

Harry: ‘I might get a dog if I do my best.’ A film by Maartje Nevejan.

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After 30 years, Harry, Tiny and Sonja have to leave the sheltered housing facility in Capelle aan den IJssel and move to a complex for people aged 55+ in a normal residential area. In the context of the participatory society, they are expected to stand on their own two feet. But can they? Is it responsible? And what happens if it goes wrong?

Harry, Tiny and Sonja show what this participation means in practice. They try to adapt as best they can to the rapid changes in healthcare. Among other things, this means that for the first time in a long time, they have to make their own coffee, do their own shopping, clean their own homes and change their own light bulbs. It also means that they have to organise daytime activities and maintain contacts so that they don’t become lonely. Some are better at this than others. So they help each other. Like moving heroes, all three of them try their very best.

Integration with the new neighbours is not going very smoothly. And there is little help from the family either. Often, the bond with them has been damaged by years of trauma. Milja, Sonja’s daughter, has been caring for her mother for forty years: This is yet another house. I’m fed up.

It is also questionable whether society is ready for this. In the recent past, there have been incidents involving “confused people”, which have caused problems for society on several occasions.

In her documentary, Maartje Nevejan is not blind to the negative aspects of the care addiction that the Dutch welfare state has created in recent decades. At the same time, she recognises the fragility of the people affected by the many new regulations of the Participation Act.

Photocredit: Annaleen Louwes