In the five-part documentary series In the TBS Hans Faber and Elena Lindemans follow the developments in the Van der Hoeven Clinic in Utrecht for a year and a half. ‘After ten shooting days I said: where are the therapy sessions?’
When Hans Faber was asked to participate in a documentary series about TBS, he initially said no. That is not surprising, because Faber lost his niece Anne in 2017, who was raped and murdered by Michael P..
It was a case that upset and angered the whole of the Netherlands. Why had the perpetrator, who had already been convicted of two rapes, not received a TBS? “Journalistically, Hans found it very interesting. But in 2019, when we asked him, it was all still too fresh and sensitive within the family. We did start preparations then, but everything came to a standstill for almost a year and a half due to corona. Then I asked again and he agreed. I have a lot of respect for that and also think that he did a good job,” says Elena Lindemans, who previously directed the documentaries, among other things. Moms don’t jump off flats (2014), I did not do it (2019) and Disowned fathers (2020) made.
What exactly was the intent?
Lindemans: ,, In the gym I got into a conversation with Mariëtte Keijser. She is chairman of the board of De Forensische Zorgspecialisten, which includes the Van der Hoeven Clinic. Coincidentally, at BNNVara they were already working on the idea of making a series about TBS. That coincided. The reason Keijser asked me was to paint a fair picture of TBS. That was and is rather negative, because often only the escapes are in the news. The fact that there was a lot of ignorance about TBS, said Keijser, is also due to them. They always kept things very closed. So I try to answer the question: what actually happens in that TBS clinic? They wanted to provide transparency, but I did say: I’m not coming to make a company film, then I really want to film everything. So close to the skin of patients and employees.”
“I like to show worlds that people don’t know through documentaries. We get a unique insight into the TBS clinic, about which we all have an opinion and in which we all think we know what the situation is with TBS detainees. But actually we don’t know. I fell from one surprise to another. If you only hear that TBS’s are going on a sailing holiday, which we filmed by the way, then you think: how?”
The first broadcast starts with a choir of TBS prisoners singing in the clinic.
“It will be explained gradually. Tbs patients sing, play sports, cook together, watch television, but everything within that is therapy. Will you show up at the choir? Can you work on a song in a group? Can you behave when others say you sound cheating? After ten shooting days I said: where are the therapy sessions? The EMDR? The answer was: everything here is therapy.”
Hans Faber said in the documentary that his brother Wim, Anne’s father, was initially afraid that the series about TBS would give a too positive picture.
“That is not happening. I’m glad I got 52 minutes five times. Raw, nasty things have also been discussed in it. Patients in isolation cells, who make one suicide attempt after another. Psychiatric patients, especially female patients, who got stuck in mental health care, but did something that got them four years in prison plus TBS, and you wonder if they will ever be released. And so the TBS is the drain of mental health care.”
How does Hans Faber himself look back?
,,He found it increasingly difficult as he found out more and more what people had done. He had deliberately not looked that up in the beginning in order to come in blankly and to observe without judging.”
What do you hope to achieve with the documentary series?
“The scenes are nowhere sensational, but raw and pure. I also found it exciting when I first entered the clinic. But I think that this series will make people think more nuanced about TBS.”
The five-part series ‘In de TBS’ can be seen weekly from Monday, August 28 at 10:10 p.m. at BNNVara on NPO 2
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