Meet the Fokkens
Meet the Fokkens is the story of two ageing hookers. Twins, no less. We could ask for no better guides through the intriguing world of love-for-money than Louise and Martine Fokkens. What does it mean to be a prostitute? What are the secrets of the trade? But more painful questions need to be addressed as well: What is it like to spend your life selling your body? How do you keep going without losing all self-respect?
Their career under the red light started in the mid-sixties. In those days, skirts had to be over the knee and there was still an art to turning a trick. Their husbands were their pimps and their children a reason to keep going. Together, they made quite an attraction. The money came rolling in. But they had unhappy marriages and their children were taken into care.
Louise and Martine broke free, ran their own brothel and warily watched as the red light district became the international tourist attraction that it is today, where Martine is currently still working at 69 years of age. She would like to stop, but financial troubles keep her on display in her shop window. Every Wednesday, Christians from Blood & Fire come to pray for her in the room where she does her business. They want her to stop, but Martine has her own ideas. Her twin sister Louise has stopped. She didnÂ’t have a choice. She suffers from rheumatism. In her cluttered flat in IJmuiden she paints and waits for Martine, who comes home with new stories from Amsterdam.