Gevangen op Java

Gevangen op Java is a dramatised documentary about the life of journalist Willem Walraven (1887?1943). The central theme is his captivity on the island of Java, then still part of the Netherlands East Indies. After a rather careless trial in 1941 Walraven was branded a public enemy and imprisoned in a prison near Bandung. Actor Gerard Thoolen plays the role of Walraven, who in his prison cell looks back on his life. Short fragments from the trial back up his story, which recounts his youth in Holland, his marriage to the Indonesian Itih and his authorship. As a setting for all these events archive footage was used. Two people who feel affinity for Walraven follow in his track across present?day Java:ex?Provo and journalist Duco van Weerle and the controversial human rights activist Poncke Princen. Gradually the image emerges of a controversial figure, who was constantly fighting against himself and the world around him. His typewriter was his weapon and his instrument: "the piano of my soul". Filmmaker Jan van den Berg has interwoven documentary and fictional elements to end up with an impressionistic portrait reflecting the Dutch colonial history in the Dutch East Indies (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam)