Het Vonnis
short fiction (1989)
Awards
Montréal 1990, Audience Award
Description
First fiction film of Molenaar & Van Wijk, based upon an original story of renowned Dutch writer Toon Tellegen and starring theatre personality Jozef van den Berg.
In HET VONNIS (The Sentence) the world is exactly as it is now. There's just one difference: the Dutch population has - by way of a referendum - voted massively in favour of the reintroduction of the death penalty.
The new law on the 'Democratic Enforcement of Sentences', regulating the course of events, provides among other things that any citizen can be - kindly but urgently - requested to carry out a death penalty.
From the Press
'A cool nightmare... fiction from another planet... a promising debut'
'It must be Molenaar & Van Wijk's documentary background that makes their fiction so terribly real...'
Adopted by Amnesty International in its campaign against capital punishment.