Film Series: De engel van Doel

Directed by Tom Fassaert and presented by Marc Jacobs.
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Doel, a Belgian village near the Dutch border, is disappearing quickly and deliberately. Not because of the four old nuclear reactors on its territory, but because the Flemish government decided that the village might block projects for new docks for the Antwerp harbour, plans developed since the 1960s. In the 21^st century this process of officially encouraged depopulation is coming to an end: 2500 inhabitants in the middle of the 19^th century, 810 in 2000 and 143 in 2010. Activists react using arguments about heritage, from monuments and landscapes to heritage communities or museums, to try and stop the demolishment of Doel. Tom Fassaert (1979) decided to make a documentary: the Angel of Doel. This refers to one of the last inhabitants, Emilienne, Fassaert presents the chronicle of the dismantlement  of a village but also focusses on what this means for the last inhabitants, like Emilienne and her friends.
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The Film Series is sponsored by the Department of American Studies of the University of Maryland and the Association of Critical Heritage Studies United States Chapter