Double Lucky
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Synopsis Documentary director Esmée van Loon grew up with two mothers. This always raises many questions; “Who is your real mother?”, “How have you been conceived?” and “Don’t you miss a father?” She sometimes finds it difficult to deal with these questions and decided to investigate how other young people of her age handle these situations. Marijn, Dora and Lieke all grew up with gay parents, just like Esmée. They tell her how this form of parenting has shaped them. The many questions are also present in their lies and sometimes cause frustration. You end up in all kinds op typical situations, which you normally wouldn’t even think about. Because how do you learn to shave as a guy with two mothers? Is it more difficult for a girl to deal with men if you have two mothers? Have they never wished that they just had a father and mother? But we also see it brings pride. In this film you’ll see what it’s like to grow up with pink parents and critical, but humorous, look is cast at all “well-meaning” questions.
Director's statement I started this project from my personal experience and fascination. I grew up on Texel, a small island in Noord-Holland. Here I was raised by my two lovely mums. I have always known my biological father, he is also married to a man. He never played a father-role, but I do see him as family.
This situation is normal for me, I simply don’t know better. However, when I got older, I was increasingly confronted with the fact that my background is not ongoing. It raises a lot of questions, which are often very intimate. When I talked to a friend a while ago about my frustration, she said: why wouldn’t you make a film about this?
At that moment I deliberately started thinking about my position and my frustrations. Strangely enough, I never thought about it before, I had become so accustomed to curiosity, to the face that I did not belong to the “norm.” I started to wonder how other young people experience this. I knew others with two mums, but when we saw each other we never actually talked about the “fact” that we had this specific thing in common. Because that was just our reality, we didn’t think twice about it.
In the Summer of 2017 I went looking for peers who, like me, had gay parents. I traveled through the country and spoke to a lot of them. I found out that my sole experience is not isolated. More people were running into these problems, some of them unknown to me, but many were too familiar.
This resulted in the current documentary, Double Luck. Were you will get a taste of what it’s like to grow up with pink parents.
Biography Esmée van Loon (1996) directs and produces her own documentaires, often on social issues. Looking beyond the surface, observation and involvement with her topics are importent elements in her proces. Her films assume a strong humanistic attitude from sociopolitical, psychological and philosophical perspectives. She studied Audiovisual Design and Cultural Diversity at the Willem de Kooning Academy. She works/has worked as an (assistant) producer for VPRO Backlight, 25FPS Commercial Production, SpiegelFilm and KoalaKoncepts. She is a board member of FilmPlatform Rotterdam and editor for Rotterdams Open Doek. In 2017 she was chosen to be the Dutch ambassador in the youth jury of the Venice Film Festival and ambassador of the LUX Film Prize. Her documentaires have screened at several filmfestivals, including International Film Festival Rotterdam and ShortCutz. Together with Marijn van der Ploeg she is the owner of the starting production company “KamerFilm.”
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