behind these walls (2011)

Behind these walls is a theatrical journey across the north of Amsterdam’s changing urban landscape in a driving bus. Intimate scenes at unexpected locations unravel the hidden stories behind the exterior of facades. The stories reveal the different meanings that places at the outskirts of the city might have for people: a stewardess, passing through, looking for connection in an anonymous hotel; an old man who started to live there trying to forget his past; a brother and sister trying to take root again after a migration. While the north of Amsterdam is approaching a critical moment in its history, Behind these walls reflects on the question of what it means to be rooted or uprooted. 

Facts, statistics, real life and fiction are intertwined in map that gradually shows the neighborhood as ever changing. Not a map of construction sites and parking lots, but one of memories, dreams and secrets.  

Photos: Sjoerd Knibbeler