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The Hunt for Meral Ö.

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Lieve Vrouwestraat 13
3811 BP Amersfoort
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From one day to the next, Meral Öztürk (Dilan Yurdakul) has to pay back 34,000 euros in childcare allowance received to the Tax Office. In the risk profiles drawn up by this service, "single mother" is one of the alarm signals - which is how Merel comes into the picture. Of course, she cannot simply repay this money, besides finding it unjust and extremely unfair.

Merel's entire salary is garnished. A social investigator (Gijs Naber...

From one day to the next, Meral Öztürk (Dilan Yurdakul) has to pay back 34,000 euros in childcare allowance received to the Tax Office. In the risk profiles drawn up by this service, "single mother" is one of the alarm signals - which is how Merel comes into the picture. Of course, she cannot simply repay this money, besides finding it unjust and extremely unfair.

Merel's entire salary is garnished. A social investigator (Gijs Naber) increasingly interferes in her private life - ranging from a car tracker and surveillance to a threatening search for "unregistered" relationships. A desperate Merel tries to keep things going for her children, but the situation is becoming increasingly dire. She begins to distrust help agencies she approaches. She no longer knows whether these people are going to help her or get her into further trouble. When her children are in danger of being placed in care, Merel makes a radical decision.

From the beginning, director Stijn Bouma was struck by the suffering inflicted on surrogate parents - mostly single women. He saw the images before him, as it were: of children being placed out of home, divorces, forced home sales. Bouma also tasted the Kafkaesque of the subject: the single person powerless against the state that should actually be there to protect and help people. The benefits scandal is one of the most painful and heartbreaking affairs of the Rutte era that still leaves its mark in the lives of thousands of people.

Bouma previously made two documentaries on the subject. Only Against the State dates from 2021. In it, Bouma had five victims recount what had happened to them. Sheila versus the State from 2023 captured the agonizing settlement process of an allowance parent and her family. However, he was left with too much important residual material that also needed to be told. Bouma felt he could best incorporate all this extra information into a fiction film that takes the viewer back to the eye of the storm that was and still is the benefits scandal.

The Hunt for Meral Ö. was largely shot in Almere, where many victims of the benefits scandal live. The municipality is aware of this and the city is now very committed to the victims. They also supported the film - many scenes were shot in their Almere town hall.

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