Voorheen Nederlands Indië

Documentary trilogy about the former colony of the Dutch East Indies. The presence of the Dutch in what is now Indonesia dates back more than three centuries. The colonial past has left its traces there, but also in the Netherlands. Not least in the collective memory of both peoples. Dutch memories of the colonial era in the Indies are often saturated with nostalgia and melancholy, of waving palm trees and the music of the gamelan. The trilogy Once the Dutch East Indies shows that the reality was often very different. The documentary focuses on the colonial past, the turbulent struggle for independence in the years 1945-49 and the relationship between the Dutch and Indonesians up to the present.