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20 Jan '16

New Flemish TV series will follow routes of refugees

Summary

Broadcaster Vier and TV journalist Martin Heylen are producing a new series in which several Flemish politicians follow the same route as refugees did to get to Belgium

Go Back to Where You Came From

Television journalist Martin Heylen will direct the new TV series Terug naar eigen land in which Flemish politicians and celebrities will walk in the footsteps of six refugees who eventually arrived in Belgium. The series is based on the award-winning Australian series Go Back to Where You Came From.
 

To be broadcast on Vier, Terug naar eigen land features six people with outspoken views on immigration: politician Jean-Marie Dedecker; Veroniek Dewinter, daughter of Vlaams Belang leader Filip Dewinter; lawyer and N-VA politician Zuhal Demir; comedian Bert Gabriels; singer turned Open VLD politician Margriet Hermans; and choreographer Ish Ait Hamou (pictured), a second-generation immigrant from Morocco.

Heylen is known for his work on the former TV programme Man bijt hond, where he covered the US, Siberia and China, and the documentary series God en klein Pierke, in which he interviewed Cardinal Godfried Danneels, Flemish music icon Raymond Van het Groenewoud and former EU president Herman Van Rompuy.

In the Australian original, six prominent Australians were led backwards from their homeland to the land of origin of new asylum seekers, deprived of wallets, phones and passports, to illustrate the problems encountered by real asylum-seekers. In one series, the celebrity refugees have to take a boat as part of their passage, from which they need to be rescued in mid-ocean.

For the Flemish version, Demir, Gabriels and Dewinter will start in in Iraq, while Dedecker, Hermans and Hamou will start in Belgium and head to the Somalian capital Mogadishu.

Photo courtesy Vier

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Woestijnvis

Woestijnvis (which literally means Desert Fish) is one of Flanders’ best-known and most-esteemed TV production companies. It has produced a long list of award-winning programmes and legendary series, many of them broadcast on Flanders public television station VRT.
History - Woestijnvis was founded in the 1990s by Wouter Vandenhaute, Erik Watté and Jan Huyse, all of whom met in the sports newsroom of the public broadcaster, then called BRT.
Personalities - Over the years, Woestijnvis has been a playground for much-loved TV figures like Mark Uytterhoeven, Rob Vanoudenhoven, Bruno Wyndaele and Bart De Pauw.
Expansion - In recent years, Woestijnvis has expanded its operations – producing the hit feature film Loft, buying TV channels VT4 and VijfTV, and taking a 25% stake in the weekly news and entertainment magazine Humo.
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Woestijnvis is founded

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years Woestijnvis programme Man bijt hond was on television

175

cost of VT4 and VijfTV takeover in millions of euros

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