ND/NF

Groningen, the Netherlands. Jos wakes up in a homeless shelter, his regular place to spend the night. It’s almost ten o’clock in the morning. Street life commences, regardless of the weather. Whether he’s sick or not, whether he wants to or not: Jos has to leave. Like all other days. The shelter will reopen in twelve hours. Twelve hours that aren’t easily spent outside in the cold. But today is different. Jos has a plan. He is going to make up for what he did. He’ll have to convince his girlfriend. And his friends. Jos is going to change, starting today. No more drinking. No more smoking. No more coke, heroin or other drugs. Never. Jos really wants to change. He’s quitting his bad habits today. Really. Today is the day. Or, well, maybe tomorrow.

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For many Tunisians Europe is the promised land that seems closer than ever since the Jasmine revolution. Separated by the Mediterranean sea, the other side represents an escape to a freer, more promising existence in the ‘real’ world. 22-year-old Abdallah, who works for meagre wages at a DVD shop in the centre of Tunis, also dreams of crossing the sea. He sells Western movies with a passion, movies that only strengthen his notion of crossing. During a holiday with his family at tourist seaside resort Sousse, Abdallah’s chances seem to take turn for the better. His westernized cousins, visiting from Nice, take him to a dance party in a disco. There he meets 36-year-old Anna. Will Abdallah succeed—like his father did in the past—in getting to Europe through a Dutch woman? Or will he have to find other ways out of his native country? And does he want to leave at all?

Die Welt paints an unpolished picture of a young Tunisian who longs for a Western dream reality. This slice-of-life story was partly based on the experiences of Dutch-Tunisian filmmaker Karim Alexander Pitstra and his family.