Eigen volk

While the multicultural dream seems permanently over for our southern neighbours and xenophobia increases, dramatist and writer Neske Beks’ allegiance to her Flemish people and family remains unabated in her documentary debut. In the 1970s, Beks grew up in a small suburb of Antwerp, in a warm working-class family. Her dark skin made Beks an outsider in her foster family. In this colourful family chronicle, she examines how the ideals of those years were replaced by the gut feelings of the extreme right. This happened in her own family, too, half of whom cast a vote for Vlaams Belang. Beks’ toughest relationship is with her dad, who already switched to the far-right Vlaams Blok party when Beks was still a teenager. And still, Eigen volk is definitely not a reckoning or character assassination, but a personal quest for the universal issues that unite us or drive us apart.