The Farmer Who Wanted to Emigrate

'Fed up', Brouwer is with the Dutch rules and laws that keep him from carrying out his profession in freedom. So he wants to emigrate to France. The 62-year-old farmer has been living on his parents' farm in Leusden all his life. Today, he runs the farm by himself, assisted by his 77-year-old blind hand Hendrik. It is a miracle how they manage. Every day, Brouwer and Hendrik eat their sandwiches in the farm kitchen, which looks like an open-air museum. Filmmaker Geertjan Lassche, investigative journalist for current affairs programme , followed Brouwer for two years in the build-up to the coveted move abroad. Initially, his wish seems an illusion, but Brouwer tackles it thoroughly and the plan takes concrete form. The question whether he will succeed keeps us on tenterhooks till the end, sustained by images of farming as a phenomenon threatened with extinction and of the Dutch countryside that is changing with the seasons. Although the film contains a lot of dung, cows and dirty fingernails, it also has profundities from the farmer who claims to know life better than anybody else. Black-and-white photographs by Brand Overeem, which interlard the film and enhance the nostalgic tone, connect the past en present life of farmer Brouwer.