IFFR Live: La Holandesa (Messi and Maud)

For eight years, Maud and Frank have tried to have children. In vain. Now they are on holiday in Chile, in order to ‘start afresh’. That’s a nice idea, but it isn’t that easy. Certainly not for Maud, who impulsively packs her rucksack after a fierce quarrel and roams the South American country, ignoring the angry voicemails from Frank.

In this surefooted debut by Marleen Jonkman, actress Rifka Lodeizen makes sure we always have sympathy for Maud, whatever stupid and occasionally even illegal things she does. Her journey through a beautifully filmed and very varied Chilean landscape offers her an opportunity to break free of herself and her past. Along dusty highways, in anonymous roadside restaurants, she is an unknown ‘blonde’ and she can keep inventing a new life story. A moving drama about a woman wandering and finally finding her own way again.