FEATURE FILM
UNDER THE CLOCK
Utrecht, 1942. Nineteen-year-old Anne van den Bogaerde throws herself into the student resistance, smuggling Jewish children into hiding with foster families in the countryside. Driven by a guilt she cannot name, saving others has become the only language she knows. When she falls in love with Fred — the former fiancé of her deported best friend Betty — she allows herself, for the first time, to be loved. Then the impossible happens: Betty is found alive. Out of loyalty Anne ends things with Fred and steps aside. But Betty has changed and no longer needs saving. Their friendship begins to fracture under the weight of everything neither of them will say.
When the resistance learns the crèche at the Jewish Theatre is about to be cleared, Anne pushes the operation beyond its limits. For one brief moment, she and Fred finally allow themselves the love they have both been denying — he asks her to marry him, and she accepts. The rescue succeeds, but the group has been infiltrated. In the chaos, Fred is shot and dies in Anne's arms.
Forced underground, Anne and Betty hide together with the children. When little Benny falls gravely ill, the two of them set their fractured friendship aside and save him. What follows is a confrontation as painful as it is liberating, and at last their truths are laid bare.
After the war, Anne retreats into silence, convinced she has no right to live among the living. She refuses to attend Fred's reburial, which Betty has arranged — until a letter her mother left before she died reveals a truth she was never able to see. When Anne enters the church, the pews are filled with the children she helped save and the people she once fought beside. Around her, children's voices rise, bright and soaring. Anne finally stops running.
Status: Script completed - Seeking production.