🎬 Movie

Anna and Marike await their sailor husbands, who spend nine months of the year at sea. Their lives in the port city of Rotterdam are defined by endless waiting, punctuated by brief visits where they must relearn how to be a family. Documentarian Marlene van den Berg captures their daily rhythms: video calls from the ship, the empty half of the bed, a child's questions about their father. This 2025 documentary examines modern notions of freedom through the lens of enforced independence. Each woman navigates solitude in her own way, finding support in a community of fellow 'sailors' wives' or losing herself in work. The film becomes an intimate portrait of love stretched across space and time, where conventional family roles are constantly renegotiated.