Release Date

24 Oct, 2009

Runtime

02:56: (HH:MM)

Synopsis

Reading relay of the novel 'Oeroeg' by Hella Haasse by eighty well-known and lesser-known Dutch people. Each person reads a page aloud, after which the book is passed on to the next reader. Philip Freriks, news anchor and ambassador for Nederland Leest, opens the reading relay. Director Shireen Strooker concludes it. 'Oeroeg' is Hella Haasse's debut novel from 1948. Haasse tells the story of the friendship between an Indonesian boy and the son of a Dutch administrator at a tea plantation in the Dutch East Indies before the Second World War. Gradually, the two boys grow apart. When the narrator, the Dutch boy, returns to the Indies—which has not yet quite become Indonesia—after studying in Delft, their estrangement turns out to have grown into a chasm. The final sentence reads: "Am I forever a stranger in the land of my birth, on the soil from which I do not wish to be uprooted? Time will tell."

Original Title

Nederland leest Oeroeg

Photos

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Actors

Ahmed Aboutaleb

Hedy d'Ancona

Abdelkader Benali

Noraly Beyer

Naima El Bezaz

Marion Bloem

Peter Blok

Michiel Borstlap

Aaf Brandt Corstius

Remco Campert

Bart Chabot

Adriaan van Dis

Peter Faber

Philip Freriks

Tygo Gernandt

Hanneke Groenteman

Boris van der Ham

Ingmar Heytze

Isa Hoes

Marc-Marie Huijbregts

Jennifer Hoffman

Crew

Hella Haasse