MovieChat Forums > Het zusje van Katia (2008) Discussion > Unusual film - who has seen it?

Unusual film - who has seen it?


Production notes describe this film as "a powerful indictment of the inequalities and hardships facing people who migrate to the West from Eastern Europe. Katia’s Sister follows the struggles of 13-year-old Lucia, who tries to retain her childlike optimism in the face of the harsh realities of the adult world. Her story begins when she leaves Russia with her mother and older sister, Katia, hoping to find a better life. But after arriving in Amsterdam, their aspirations are soon deflated. To make ends meet, the girls' desperately poor mother finds herself soliciting on Amsterdam's seediest streets and the effervescent but misguided Katia starts stripping. As bespectacled plain-Jane Lucia watches the women's lives spiral hopelessly downward, she retreats into emotional isolation. She becomes just “Katia's little sister”—a girl without a name of her own. In a world defined by drugs, prostitution and pornography, the things she values most—optimism and love—have become virtually worthless. Making use of handheld, close-up camera work to capture the nuances of Lucia’s suffering as she tries to keep her family together, de Jong skillfully delineates a portrait of a society where desperation forces decent people into committing otherwise unthinkable acts."

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