Moeder Suriname

Mother Suriname

Documentary that uses unique archive material to tell the life story of a Surinamese washerwoman, inspired by Tessa's grandmother Fansi. The life story covers the period from the abolition of slavery in 1863 to Surinamese independence in 1975. Fansi's story begins in a deserted village where she grew up as a house slave, after being given up by her white mother and black father. When Fansi herself becomes a mother at a young age and is abandoned by her husband, she moves to Paramaribo to offer her children a better future. As a single mother, she fights hard to offer her children better opportunities. When her children leave for the Netherlands, she is left alone, not ready to leave Suriname. It is only in her last years that she makes the crossing to the Netherlands herself and experiences the uprooting of her motherland.