Dear beloved friend,
Photo Willem Popelier.
Photo Willem Popelier.
Photo Willem Popelier.
Photo Willem Popelier.
Stills Studio Dries Verhoeven, Kininso Koncepts.
Stills Studio Dries Verhoeven, Kininso Koncepts.
Stills Studio Dries Verhoeven, Kininso Koncepts.
Stills Studio Dries Verhoeven, Kininso Koncepts.
Stills Studio Dries Verhoeven, Kininso Koncepts.
Stills Studio Dries Verhoeven, Kininso Koncepts.
Stills Studio Dries Verhoeven, Kininso Koncepts.
Stills Studio Dries Verhoeven, Kininso Koncepts.
Stills Studio Dries Verhoeven, Kininso Koncepts.
Stills Studio Dries Verhoeven, Kininso Koncepts.
Dear beloved friend, is a live film presented in a European theatre in Lagos, Nigeria, at the very moment of its creation. While the European audience watches a live stream in silence, Nollywood actors in Lagos perform before the camera. A webcam in the theatre transforms the spectators into participants: the Nigerian actors can see them and respond in real time. The audience’s presence is thereby embedded in the performance, turning the stage into a transcontinental interface between distant lives.
In the film, we witness a group of Nigerian actors dismantle the caricature of the helpless African refugee. Through sophisticated satire, they invert a long history of stereotyping and scrutinize the European self-image. The focus shifts from the spectre of African mass migration to Europe’s fear of a changing world. Europeans are portrayed as insecure former rulers, clinging anxiously to their comfortable lives.
Intimacy, mockery and confrontation alternate throughout the performance. The audience is never merely a spectator—viewers are themselves observed, and their reactions are immediately incorporated into the live film. This reversal compels the viewer to reconsider the roles of observer and observed, the host and guest, the centre and margin.
Dear beloved friend, was described in the press as both disorienting and urgent: “a mindfuck more than a performance.” Verhoeven was praised for his ability to unite form and content. “By placing European audiences face to face with their Nigerian counterparts, the work stages a dialogue that is humorous, incisive and deeply human.”
In 2023, Dear beloved friend, received a Golden Calf for Best Digital Culture Production at the Netherlands Film Festival. The jury highlighted how the work digitally breaches the fourth wall and its inventive use of live streaming to connect different worlds.
Dear beloved friend, is a live film presented in a European theatre in Lagos, Nigeria, at the very moment of its creation. While the European audience watches a live stream in silence, Nollywood actors in Lagos perform before the camera. A webcam in the theatre transforms the spectators into participants: the Nigerian actors can see them and respond in real time. The audience’s presence is thereby embedded in the performance, turning the stage into a transcontinental interface between distant lives.
In the film, we witness a group of Nigerian actors dismantle the caricature of the helpless African refugee. Through sophisticated satire, they invert a long history of stereotyping and scrutinize the European self-image. The focus shifts from the spectre of African mass migration to Europe’s fear of a changing world. Europeans are portrayed as insecure former rulers, clinging anxiously to their comfortable lives.
Intimacy, mockery and confrontation alternate throughout the performance. The audience is never merely a spectator—viewers are themselves observed, and their reactions are immediately incorporated into the live film. This reversal compels the viewer to reconsider the roles of observer and observed, the host and guest, the centre and margin.
Dear beloved friend, was described in the press as both disorienting and urgent: “a mindfuck more than a performance.” Verhoeven was praised for his ability to unite form and content. “By placing European audiences face to face with their Nigerian counterparts, the work stages a dialogue that is humorous, incisive and deeply human.”
In 2023, Dear beloved friend, received a Golden Calf for Best Digital Culture Production at the Netherlands Film Festival. The jury highlighted how the work digitally breaches the fourth wall and its inventive use of live streaming to connect different worlds.
Video
Video by Thorsten Alofs.
Press
“Verhoeven is a master at finding the right format for the right subject (…) a feat of technical virtuosity (…) a road trip about people fleeing misery in search of a long-vanished paradise. (...) It is one of his most politically-engaged productions, depicting a mass exodus from one continent and another continent struggling to cope with the influx.“
Hein Janssen in de Volkskrant (5 March 2023)Read the review here (in Dutch)
“Verhoeven deeply affects us by immersing us in unforgettable experiences. (…) young, self-assured, energetic Black Africans mock us, and how we see ourselves.“
Joost Ramaer on Theaterkrant.nl (6 March 2023)Read the review here (in Dutch)
“Throughout the performance, we hear a voice-over describing the life of an average European. Someone who consumes the news, checks his phone, and muddles along. Despite his concerns about the world, all he does is donate to charity and have recurring nightmares about a party where he doesn't recognise anyone. All of this paints a critical portrait of the decadence, hypocrisy, and fever dreams of the Westerner.“
Marijn Lems in NRC (6 March 2023)Read the review here (in Dutch)
“This multimedia performance is as much about how they see us as how we see them. They mock us with a caricature of how we decay before we meet our end. Struggling in our old age to understand what life was all about, asking ourselves: Did we live our lives fully?“
Babah Tarawally on ZAM Magazine (20 March 2023)Read the review here (in English)
“Thus, by its rhythm, its humor and its sensuality, Dear beloved friend, engages on another way in the ultra plowed field of racial conflict through the arts. The work renounces both humanist platitudes, commissioned commiseration and vindictive bluffing. And aims for a space of common dignity.“
Thomas Corlin on Mouvement (24 May 2023)Read the review here (in French)
"I came here with plans to make a work about migration because I’d read an article about an imminent African exodus, but one of the group's performers said: 'You all seem to be going through a midlife crisis. You're looking at tomorrow with apprehension, and are filled with nostalgia for yesterday.' Their faith in the future contrasts with our desire to cling to the past."
Lorianne van Gelder (Het Parool) interviewed Dries Verhoeven during the making of Dear beloved friend, (4 March 2023)Read the interview here (in Dutch)
"The performers briefly flip things on their head. The moment they pull on the masks, they’re making fun of white people. ‘Can we please do a send-up of that white guy,’ they said to me, ‘because we see so many stereotypes of ourselves.'"
Lotje IJzermans interviewed Dries Verhoeven in VPRO's Nooit Meer Slapen (11 March 2023)Listen to the interview (in Dutch)
Golden Calf
Dear beloved friend, won a Golden Calf, the Dutch film awards, during the Gala of the Dutch Film Festival. Dear beloved friend, won in the Best Digital Culture Production 2023 category.
The jury writes:
“The interactive theater performance Dear beloved friend, takes the viewer via a live internet connection from Nollywood on a compelling and confrontational story in which the archetypal Western view of Africa is contrasted with Africa’s perspective on Europe. With a camera in the middle of the stage as a two-way portal to that other part of the world, the fourth wall is broken down and the digital way of communication is used as a means to bring different worlds together. The digital infrastructure of the internet and livestream is used inventively to create new forms of making, showing and experiencing a work.”
Credits
concept and direction Dries Verhoeven
creative producer Joshua Alabi
performance Ayoola Odubona, Israel Efosa Okpoko, Olorunniyi Zion Praise, Uche Enechukwu, Uche Kingsley Mborogwu, John Zeblon
dramaturgy Miguel A. Melgares
directorial assistance Casper Wortmann, Naomi Steijger
technical staff Roel Evenhuis, Jeremiah Anthony Irabor, Titus Duitshof, Bolaji Afolabi Rilwan
sound design Peer Thielen
sound Adebayo Habib Olaore
light Biokorogha Tumbra, Anthony Monday
voice over artist Moshood Fattah
internet technician Bart van de Woestijne
internet Nigeria Omotayo Charles Ogunfeibo
video Adedire Badejo, Blessing Olalekan Okunola, Abiola Semiu Peter, Samuel Abaji
set Athanasius Akojuru
media runner Ebenezer Obiji
welfare Olubanke Oyeniyi
drivers Dare Oshoniyi, Adekunle Adesanya
executive production ‘n More – Lise van den Hout & Ellen van Bunnik & Kininso Koncepts – Angela Peters & Emmanuel Anya
production Studio Dries Verhoeven & Kininso Koncepts
office Kininso Koncepts admin manager Chinenye Chukwudi, assistant admin manager Oloyede Aribilola, communications Aniefiok Inyang, legal representative: Praise Alabi