9999

“In the land of the blind, I am the one-eyed king.”, says Wilfried. This country is in prison Merksplas and the blind, they are the internees. The only thing they have in common is their date of release: 31/12/9999. This film tells the story of some mentally ill criminals not being held responsible for their actions but still locked down. Without treatment and without an end date. ‘9999’ descends into the limbo of Belgium and looks some internees who are pining away in a prison, straight in the eye. The film disappears under lock and key, where time loses all common sense, and tells us of an unreal injustice. We end up in a narrow world where imagination is obliged to transcend reality and we wander through landscapes of senses of men on the edge of society.

Director

Ellen Vermeulen

Released

April 27, 2014

Language

Dutch