Author/s Sanderien Verstappen, Mario Rutten, Isabelle Makay

Youngsters in developing countries all over the world dream of going to the West. They hope to earn money and get overseas experience to improve their positions at home. But once they arrive, they end up in low-status jobs and living crammed into small houses with other newly arrived migrants. This film follows the daily life in one such house in East London. The bunker beds are filled with young Indians, all from relatively wealthy families in Gujarat. When they return to visit India, their families have great expectations of their sons and daughters. Will these youngsters fulfil their own and their families’ dreams?
26) Življenjepis:
Sanderien Verstappen is a Ph.D. researcher in Anthropology at the University of Amsterdam. Her research project focuses on the impact of emigration and remittances in central Gujarat (India). She co-directed Take Away Ritual (2002), a documentary on western tourists in India. See http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/s.b.verstappen/ Mario Rutten is Professor of Comparative Anthropology and Sociology of Asia at the University of Amsterdam. He has conducted extensive research on rural entrepreneurship and labour relations in India, Indonesia, and Malaysia, and on Indian migrants in Europe and their linkages with their home region in Gujarat, India. See http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/m.a.f.rutten/ Isabelle Makay is a visual anthropologist/documentary maker and teaches at the Design Academy Eindhoven. She directed several short documentaries, a.o. Zhenja (2007), a documentary about Russian girl in Belgium who migrated from Kazachstan, and Amer (2006), a documentary about a man who visits his home village in Bosnia-Herzegovina which he left for Italy after the war.

Research Sanderien Verstappen, Mario Rutten
Photography Isabelle Makay
Sound Isabelle Makay, Sanderien Verstappen
Editing Sanderien Verstappen, Isabelle Makay