This documentary series about 11 ‘new compatriots’ is based on the frequent telephone conversations they have with friends, an aunt, mother, sister, grandfather…in their country of origin. The telephone wire is their umbilical connection to their roots, so to speak.
Each documentary tells the deeply humane story of one of the eleven: an Iranian rugby player without papers, a woman from Chernobyl who came to Belgium for medical reasons, a Moroccan living in Antwerp and involved in politics, a young Thai boy whose family was hit by the Tsunami, a Roman woman who lived already for 7 years in an asylum with her kids, a Turkish Belgian who dreams of becoming a boxing champion, a woman from Kazakhstan who wants her son to go to Kazakhstan to meet his father, a man from Guinea who makes a film showing that Europe is not the land of milk and honey for Africans, a young Iraqi hoping to be united with this family after 5 years, a very wise professor from India and a couple from Uzbekistan that sells ‘Belgian pommes frites’.
These stories dwell on how they live in their second motherland, dreams they have inspite of sometimes very Kafkaesque situations, how they deal with homesickness, how they live together with their friendly - and sometimes very unfriendly - ‘hosts’….
The series shows the diversity within groups of people who are mostly regarded as anonymous, showing their cross-border perseverance, their zest for life and funny use of language.
At the same time interventions of the other 10 protagonists are intersected, which gives each story a more universal aspect.
The programme was honored with the first intercultural television prize in Flanders.