As the youngest, I was born into a Christian family of 9 children, in a village beneath Rotterdam. While growing up, I noticed that there were a lot of scripted and unscripted rules. After puberty I moved to the city seeking more freedom. There, in this (initially) unknown and new environment, I began to think about who I wanted to become, detached from the world I knew. But at the same time, I occasionally longed for the familiarity of home.
For this project, I went back to the village of my childhood to research young people growing up within the confines of a (religious) community.
This resulted in a coming-of-age story about 21-year-old Marlies. She grew up in the same neighborhood as me and is trying to find her own way between religion, love, family and the village.
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