Robin's Road Trip (2016)

Robin de Puy, a Dutch successful young photographer rides 10.000 miles on her Harley Davidson in the USA to find new inspiration, to overcome her fears and find herself. A successful young famous Dutch photographer travels 10.000 miles through America on a motorbike to conquer her fears and find her self again. Photographer Robin de Puy is successful. The last few years have brought her an unending series of prestigious commissions. But something is gnawing at her conscience: is she still photographing the people whom she thinks need to be seen? With only a camera as luggage, Robin de Puy gets on a motorbike and sets off on a road trip through America. After winning the Photo Academy Award and the National Portrait Prize, her career took off. But lately her work has offered her less and less satisfaction, and she asks herself if she's making the most of her talent. She wants to go back to looking around and picking her subjects herself. De Puy is confronted with a dilemma: traveling on her own, far from home, is her greatest fear. When she travels to America nonetheless and rents a Harley for her road trip, fear grips her throat at first. Because how will she continue this journey? Whom will she photograph and what do these people have in common? Does she pick outsiders? Lonely people? De Puy crisscrosses the country and chooses her route intuitively. We see how she picks the people whom she wants to photograph with her unique, sometimes unrelenting, but always open and honest point of view. The film closely shows how Robin struggles with her insecurities, but also how she learns about herself through her photos. De Puy wrote: "When I left The Netherlands 2,5 months ago I realized how much trouble I had - and still have - with leaving. Being away from home is not what frightens me; leaving does. The past ten weeks I barely slept in the same bed twice; every morning I had to say goodbye to a place and/or a person. Sometimes that was easy, sometimes not at all. I have not returned to any place or person, except for Pioche. From there I drove back to Las Vegas - the same route on which I started my journey." Director Simone de Vries' main subjects are national and international artists like Kinky Friedman, Rutger Hauer, Erik Kessels, John Callahan. In 2007 she won a Gouden Kalf (the Dutch Oscar) for "Touch me someplace I can feel". She also directed "Beer Is Cheaper Than Therapy" about suicides among American soldiers; Dutch competition at IDFA. Talent United Film & Tv produced documentaries like "Soccermillionair from East" (85 min) about Moroccan-Dutch soccerplayer Mbark Boussoufa's 'exile' in Russia; also "Wibi Soerjadi" about classic piano genius Wibi Soerjadi, who is confronted with the Alzheimer of his father and having to invent himself anew, but what can this classic piano genius, who played in Madison Square Garden, do to invent himself in the dance scene? (52 min)