De Indische tafel, boys from the Japanese camps

• Date:
• Location: Theater en filmhuis Dakota

About the film

De Indische Tafel follows a group of men in their nineties who gather weekly for an Indonesian lunch. For the first time, they share their memories of their childhood in the Dutch East Indies during the Japanese occupation. As children, some of them were held in Japanese camps — a past they rarely told their own children about.

With never-before-seen Japanese propaganda footage and excerpts from old diaries, they look back on hunger, loss, and the absence of their fathers, who were deployed on the Burma Railway, among other things. In candid conversations, they recount a history that remained hidden for a long time.

An impressive and poignant documentary about memory, silence, and history passed down through generations.

Post-screening discussion (in Dutch)

After the screening, an in-depth discussion will take place with director Pieter van Huystee about the film and the central themes, such as silence regarding war experiences, intergenerational trauma, and the lasting impact of the colonial past. The discussion will be moderated by our marketer Cristian.

Show on map