An independent film by Teun Toebes & Jonathan de Jong
Teun is 24 years old, perfectly healthy, and has chosen to live with people with dementia in the closed ward of a nursing home. Why? Teun is 24 now, but he won’t always be. Right now, what Teun wants, feels, and thinks is still being listened to. He is free to be who he is and go where he wants. But the chance that this may not be the case in the future is 1 in 5. That’s why Teun sets out now to find answers for later.
This journey is captured in Human Forever, a documentary created independently by filmmaker Jonathan de Jong and humanitarian activist Teun Toebes. Premiering on 2 October 2023, at a G20 summit around dementia, the film has already broken records, becoming the most-watched human-interest documentary in Dutch cinema history, with over 80,000 visitors. Now going global, Human Forever has won multiple awards at national and international film festivals, including a Golden Calf Award, the highest honor in Dutch cinema:
The third international Care Ethics Research Consortium (CERC) conference is honored to host a special screening of this groundbreaking documentary on the evening of Friday, January 24, 2025. If this conference explores pivotal moments, or lines of flight, when care becomes art and art becomes care, Human Forever embodies this both care ethics and care aesthetics in action. Through its powerful storytelling and moving cinematic language, the film illuminates the artistic, world-making dimensions of everyday care practices, while bringing the ethical intricacies of caring for people with dementia into sharp, transformative focus. In doing so, it invites us to think with care as a political and ethico-aesthetic practice, opening a way toward new possibilities for a more just and caring world.
Teun and Jonathan will join us to present the film and engage with the audience. Don’t miss this opportunity to connect with the creators!
Teun Toebes (1999) is an international healthcare innovator and humanitarian activist. His mission is to improve the quality of life of people with dementia worldwide. As the eldest in a family of four, with a mother who is a social psychiatric nurse, care has always been part of his life. Yet, while the choice to study nursing (BSc) and care ethics (MA) was a logical step, the choice to get involved with people with dementia was not. During an internship, Teun was introduced to dementia care and since then he has not been able to let go of his concerns about it. How is it possible that, from all good intentions, we have created an exclusionary system in which we ourselves would rather not find ourselves? And above all, how can we change this system for the better?
Based on the belief that a better world for people with dementia is a better world for all of us, Teun made the decision at the age of 21 to live in the closed ward of a nursing home. For more than three and a half years, Teun not only observed but also lived with people with dementia, seeking to experience up close how we treat people with dementia and how we can change it for the better. While living in the nursing home, Teun and filmmaker Jonathan de Jong decided to take this mission to the next level and bring a different story about dementia to the world stage. This global quest through eleven countries across four continents resulted in the international award-winning independent documentary Human Forever.
Teun a strong social media presence and has been featured in international media. He speaks at international conferences and is the author of global bestsellers The Housemates, Een Wereld te Winnen, and Human Forever. Follow him on social media via @teuntoebes and become part of the global movement for a more inclusive and better world. https://teuntoebes.com/
Jonathan de Jong (1983) is a multi-award-winning documentary filmmaker and bestselling author from the Netherlands. His work is characterized by social stories that always make an impact, whether it is the personal struggles of world-famous people or topics that affect everyone, such as dementia or mental health problems. Like no other, he knows how to package these subjects in such a way that you never look at them the same way again.
In recent years, Jonathan has made several documentaries on dementia, presenting an “older” problem in a young and refreshing way. This is also the reason why he was asked to make the opening film for the G20 Health Summit, Human Forever, together with humanitarian activist Teun Toebes. Together, they co-authored the international bestsellers (in fourteen countries) on dementia, The Housemates, Een Wereld te Winnen, and Human Forever.
Location
23-25 January 2025
Kontakt der Kontinenten, Amersfoortsestraat 20
3769 AS Soesterberg
Online
23-25 January 2025
Kontakt der Kontinenten, Amersfoortsestraat 20
3769 AS Soesterberg
Online
30-31 January 2025 (Zoom links to be published later)
Contact info Louis van den Hengel
Images homepage: Merel Visse, Christine Leroy
design website: Johanne de Heus and Marielle Schuurman