Tirza

Adaptation of Arnon Grunberg's multiple award-winning novel from 2006 is a portrait of a man who used to have everything (wife, children, a job and a million), but who after his discharge realises he is left with nothing. Jörgen Hofmeester is, in short, a typical Grunberg protagonist: redundant, powerless and mortified. His wife left him a long time ago, one daughter left for France and the other, his highly gifted darling Tirza, set out for Namibia with her Moroccan boyfriend Choukri and hasn't been in touch since. Director Van den Berg has intertwined past and present treacherously close, analogous to Hofmeester's experience. Taunted and at his wits' end, the father flies to Namibia to trace his daughter, who is believed lost. But in the African desert nation, of course, deliverance does not await him. Bewildered, he finds out what has happened to Tirza. (Nederlands Film Festival)