Sonny Boy

Sonny Boy is a 2011 Dutch film directed by Maria Peters, after the book by Annejet van der Zijl, based on a true story about interracial love during the WW2. The film was produced by Shooting Star Filmcompany. The film was selected as the Dutch entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 84th Academy Awards, but it did not make the final shortlist. Plot In 1928, a young man from Suriname named Waldemar Nods (Sergio Hasselbaink) goes to the Netherlands to study. His dark skin stands out and causes discrimination. He moves to lodging in The Hague with Rika van der Lans, who went to live separated from her deeply religious husband Willem, after she discovered him cheating with the maid Jans. She has taken all four of their children (Wim, Jan, Bertha and Henk) with her. Waldemar and the seventeen years his senior Rika start a relationship and she becomes pregnant. She says nothing to Waldemar and goes to a woman for an clandestine abortion, but changes her mind. When she is four months pregnant she tells Waldemar. He is angry for not having been told, and leaves. Wim and Jan run away, to their father Willem. Waldemar returns, and when Willem visits Rika to tell her about a job opening in Indonesia, he asks her to come along. He will accept the baby as his own child. He changes his mind when he learns the father is dark skinned. He also gets a court order for Bertha and Henk to live with him, with success. He refuses a divorce, preventing Rika remarrying Waldemar. When the child is born, they call the boy Waldy, nicknamed Sonny Boy. Rika’s landlord terminates the rental, because of Rika's extramarital affair, especially with a dark-skinned Surinamese. Rika and Waldemar roam the streets with Waldy, when they meet an older Jewish man, Sam, who rents them a room.