FOREIGN?
Video documentary: A Search for the History of Migration
3rd generation youth interview the 1st generation about their arrival in the Netherlands.
March - June 2006

Concept: Daniela Swarowsky / ZiM
Camera and editing: Arthur Bueno
Interviews / Camera: Quarda Doukhataby, Wendy Jordan, Ikram Azauag, Farid Faik, Didem Kahraman and Rachel King.
Guidance: Maurice Oosthoek / SONOR in the context of "Op Eigen Kracht", Jup de Heer / CINEAC Noord (Community Television Station).

The migrant workers who came to the Netherlands forty years ago now have children and grandchildren. For these new generations, their migration already is 'history'. Children of migrants know very little about how and why they ended up in the Netherlands. This empowerment project helped to fill in the blanks. In the context of a ZiM initiative and concept, a group of six students of third generation migrant descent went to work on their own history of migration during their 5-month work-term for college. Under the guidance of SONOR (social work organization), they did research into different countries' migration history. They learned how to lead interviews and how to make their own film with the help of Cineac Noord, a community television station. They went out with a video camera and filmed discussions with first generation migrants. They interviewed residents of diverse cultural backgrounds living in Rotterdam's Old North District. How did they come to live in the Netherlands and why? What were their expectations and did they come into being? Rotterdam video-maker Arthur Bueno accompanied the students commissioned by ZiM during this process and made a video documentary using his and their footage.