2023 Freek en Hella de Jonge – Het Atelier, Portrait of Hella
The portrait of grandma Lientje that hung prominently in the living room made
Hella de Jonge realize early on that there was a great sadness behind it.
No wonder that precisely that painting has become the starting point of a documentary about her remarkable creative resilience.
During eighty minutes we get a picture of how time and time again she found the impetus to overcome disappointment and injury and to bend to create an impressively varied oeuvre.
During the lockdowns, Hella retreated to her Atelier (studio) to pick up an old love: painting.
What once went wrong at the Rietveld Academy has blossomed in two years into a style of its own with its own stories.
Daily walks, with her husband Freek, across the Jewish Cemetery, which is 200 meters from the Atelier (studio), provide this story with a surprising context.
In the Atelier, Hella talks with friends, her father (unused takes from Don’t loose Heart 2014), a vitality professor and a designer.
Freek de Jonge, her husband for 52 years and well-known performer, has distilled a story from it and composed the recordings together with Hella.