Arquivo

The fifth divine prescription specifies: “Honour thy father and thy mother”. But how can this obligation be met if a person has never lived with his real parents and was raised by another family? This is the query broached by Niek Koppen in Honour Your Father and Mother. The director goes back to a character that he had been concerned with eleven years previously. Roland today is 22 years old, but when he was 10, he had his profile elaborated by Koppen for a children’s TV program. The boy spoke openly of his current changes in address, his adoptive family, and his desire to grow up. The director never forgot the moving statements by the boy. The director now outlines a new profile for Roland, today a “man of his times”: he works as a sales agent on Internet, drives a company car, and talks non-stop over a mobile phone. Drawing a line between past and present, the documentary reconstructs Roland’s turbulent childhood, interviewing people who had a decisive influence over his background. This film is part of a series The Ten Commandments, by producer Paul de Bont with medium-length films made by the best directors of documentaries residing in Holland.