Job and the Dutch Free-State

Job en de Hollandse Vrijstaat

The film documents a personal memory. In 1988 I met a quietly eccentric man, who lived in the occupied Conradstreet in Amsterdam. More than 100 squatters lived there, mostly artists. Job was in my eyes the most authentic of them all. After the Conradstreet was dramatically cleared by the police the squatters left. Only Job stayed behind as if nothing had happened. After the buildings were pulled down he survived under the most bizarre conditions, apparently oblivious to time and space, but Job seemed to see something in stones and wood splinters that no-one else could see. One day he left and was never seen again.