GREAT KILLS ROAD

Feature film (2010), US/NL, drama, digital, colour, 78 min, Engels/Dutch spoken

  • Writer/Director: Tjebbo Penning
  • Co-writer: Marcel Faber
  • Producers: Phanta Film (NL), Chamber Street Films (USA)
  • Cast: Marcel Faber, Yonan Orjubin, Kelly Nyks, Steven C. Fallis
  • Distribution: Mokum Filmdistributie (NL)

Maas de Boer is alone. With silence. With his conscience. With an old postcard from New York City, his last link to his ex-wife Sarah, an American woman who left when she couldn’t take it any longer. Holland, its gray skies, its impenetrable language, Maas’ constant absence. But above all, Jonan, their son, severely mentally handicapped. “He was never gonna walk. He was never gonna talk. He was never gonna smile. And there was nothing I could do about it,” It’s been eight years now that Maas has been taking care of Jonan alone. Until now. Maas travels to New York to find Sarah. There’s something he must tell her, a secret that is poisoning him. As he scours the metropolis, he encounters indifference and loneliness, but also an enveloping feeling of humanity. And, ultimately, Sarah, who lives on Great Kills Road in Staten Island. But it’s not the Sarah he remembers; it is now the single mother of a cute and healthy three year-old boy. A woman who still hasn’t come to terms with her deed. This is the moment he has been both hoping for and fearing, a moment that can explode into an act of revenge or redemption…