Gerlach

Farmer Gerlach has been trying for half a century to preserve his human dignity while the forces of society have been battering his existence.
Gerlach is the last remaining crop farmer in Amstelveen, a town on the southern edge of Amsterdam. All his life he has lived on his farm in a simple wooden house. He’s the salt of the earth, but he has seen everything around him change. He used to have vistas of meadows and farmlands, but now his house is surrounded by symbols of big business: a Shell petrol station, a McDonalds branch, a cloverleaf junction. Every 15 minutes there’s a plane flying over, on its way to or from Schiphol Airport. And that's not all: soon the last two pieces of open land around his farm will be built up: a business park will spring up and the express tram to Amsterdam will pass behind his farm. And last but not least, climate change is coming: the weather is getting drier, more extreme and unpredictable, there are fewer days for harvesting.
His small kitchen and the little greengrocer's shop he runs in his barn are a meeting place for local people from all walks of life, to discuss life’s major and minor issues, and he also helps those people “blown in by the wind”. From his small patch of land, Gerlach regards the absurd world around him, philosophically and with a dose of wry humor.