Louis Doedel

During the economic depression in the thirties, the Surinam union leader Louis Doedel made a stand for the unemployed and the small landowners. He organised rallies and protest actions in which thousands of people participated. Doedel’s activities were considered so threatening by the colonial regime at the time that he was locked away in a mental hospital in 1937. Only 43 years later, Doedel was released from this institution. The tragic life story of Doedel is known to only a few Dutchmen. The documentary follows the search by the Surinam woman Nina Jurna, who lives in Holland, for the story of her great-uncle, for the role of her native country in the colonial era, and therefore also for her own roots.