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When she was six years old, Maroesja Perizonius and her mother travelled to India, where Bhagwan gave her a new name: Ma Prem Chandra. They followed the teachings for seven years. Incorporating old photographs and film footage, and by revisiting the commune's compound, Perizonius reconstructs her childhood in the Bhagwan movement. Examples of people she speaks with are the former Amsterdam commune leader and especially her mother. The latter claims she wanted her child to make her own decisions; Perizonius feels she was still too young to do so. According to her mother, she wanted to go to the commune; according to Perizonius, she clung to the doorpost on the day they moved. About the English children's commune, where Perizonius was forced to work hard, her mother says: 'I was actually against it (...), but I didn't want to forbid it.' Perizonius calls this period 'the loss of my innocence' and blames her mother, in an uneasy confrontation, for not intervening right away when elder commune members sexually harassed her when she was thirteen. Award the City of Utrecht Award 2005.

Credits

Production company
Lemming Film
TV company
NCRV TV

Title: Communekind
Year: 2004
Duration : 50 minutes
Category: Short Documentary
Edition: NFF 2005

Gouden Kalf nominees

Other awards

Filmprijs van de Stad Utrecht (2005)

NFF Archive

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