De missie Willems

When Erik Willems's father died in 1964, Erik was only seven. In this compact documentary, Willems reconstructs his father's life story by incorporating old films, photographs and letters and by interviewing his mother, sister and acquaintances of his father. The latter left for the Netherlands East Indies as an archaeologist in 1935, travelled illegally to Holland during World War II and he worked for the government in exile as a diplomat in Sweden. The title of the documentary refers to the organisation he founded there on his own initiative immediately after the war, to look for Dutchmen that had to be repatriated from Poland. But subsequent accusations of self-enrichment during this period by a fact-finding committee rankled in his mind for the rest of his life. Through this history, Willems Jr. also outlines the personality of a father he never got to know.