Mike is on the doorstep at Lieke. He is “her dear friend,” he tells documentary maker Roy Dames. Lieke watches from the open front door. “You are nothing at all,” she says. Mike continues: “Only, she doesn’t believe me. She thinks I’m cheating with all other women. But I have been with her for five years, Roy. I really do everything for d’r. ” “Go away in front of my door,” says Lieke. But Mike doesn’t want to leave yet. He first wants to show Roy how much he gives around Lieke. The proof can be read on his body. Mike rolls up the right pipe of his short jeans: look, a heart, large and red on his thigh, with Liekes name in ornamental letters. And look, that text on his wrist: “Cause all of me loves all of you, Lieke.“” Show your dick, “says Lieke. “You have also tattooed your dick.” Mike pulls his pants down a bit. Then look. “Lieke is everywhere.”
In 1999, Ladies Lieke also visited. She was one of the women he followed for the controversial documentary series Girls Van de Keilewegthen for Net5. In that tipple zone in Rotterdam, ladies filmed how the women lived, left little to the imagination: drug use, sex work. Fasters in cars. A number of those scenes will be shown again in the continuation of the same name that ladies make 25 years later, this time for PowNed. The initiative for that continuation came from Wendy, who had no role in the 1999 series but worked for a long time on Keileweg. After everything she had seen and experienced there, she thought it was important in a new one Girls Van de Keileweg It would be recorded how women were doing now.
Wendy herself now has three children and no longer uses drugs. She tries to motivate other women to also kick off. Sonja has also succeeded, for example. She now works as a BDSM mistress: Ladies films how a customer kisses her feet. “It is not something that makes me excited,” she explains ladies. “But I can get rid of it, nice to express. Delicious.” She no longer has sex for money. Just like the other women, she looks back on her time on Keileweg with mixed feelings, when drugs and paid sex still formed a large part of her life. For nine years. The Keileweg “was a sort of second house. Well – I didn’t have a first house. It was just my house and my family. ” A bitter smile appears on her face. “But what a family, isn’t it?”
Damen portrays his main characters without a value judgment. As an interviewer he is barely present: when he lets the women tell their story, you sometimes hear him mutter something in favor or co -with, but that is usually the case. The impression arises that he has a good relationship with them. The frankness that results from this is what makes the series so strong, but sometimes also brings with it a difficult feeling of voyeurism, just like in the original documents. Especially in the case of Lieke that sometimes sands. After having been clean for a while, she started using again. You sometimes notice her way of talking, to her rolling eyes. In vague terms she talks about a man she has met online and whom she wants to marry “on her deathbed.” She wants to be with that man, but she is stuck in her poisonous relationship with Mike (who also uses). One moment he overloads her with love. The next moment he scolds her the skin. The unpredictability is brewing in every interaction. It gives a powerless feeling to witness it without being able to intervene.
Takkie and Siepie
“Tomorrow you will experience it, boy,” warns Mike at the end of the first episode after a scream. He is sitting next to Lieke on her white couch. There are hugs from Takkie and Siepie on the backrest. “Wait until something comes here in the letterbox,” he says. “Nothing comes through the letterbox here,” says Lieke. Mike gets up, starts to walk away. “No, they are calling for that.” He starts screaming again, now in the camera: “That is than that worldwide you crawled for five years. People: staying away from her. “
The next day Lieke finds a huge package on the sidewalk. Don’t, you think as a viewer – but she still takes it inside. There is a teddy bear in it. Almost as big as herself. In the evening Mike will be on the doorstep again.