Berichten uit de Hunkerbunker

During the COVID-19 pandemic, photographer and filmmaker Carel van Hees (2KM2 - het heden van de stad, IFFR 2006) is forced to turn his apartment in Rotterdam's RVS flats into his own little world. The apartment, originally built as a home for working single women, is also known as the Hunkerbunker (the bunker of yearning), now its residents' lives are confined to their units. On the tenth floor van Hees meets Gerarda van Nimwegen, a 106-year-old woman who hasn’t left her apartment for the past five years. During her long life she has survived many crises, including the Spanish flu, the poverty of the interbellum and the bombing of Rotterdam – all this without losing her sense of humour. Berichten uit de Hunkerbunker is a loving tribute to a remarkable resident whose life has come to a halt in the apartment she’s lived in since the age of 44.

– Christiaan Boesenach