Helge Prinsen

Loss won’t pay the bills is a moving and humorous portrait of Holland’s oldest greengrocer and his wife, who put their heart and soul into running their business and don’t want to hear about quitting. Adrie and Francien’s greengrocer’s shop in Flushing’s old town has been there for 65 years. Old age has affected their walking ability, but Adrie still works 14 to 16 hours a day. Just before they got married in 1957, they went on holiday for the first and last time. Since then they haven’t got around to it. Working hard is their creed. Ada, Adrie’s much younger sister, helps out in the shop every day. She worries at the prospect of spending three months in the south of France. Will Adrie and Francien be able to carry on or will they have to close down their shop?

A unique maritime historical document in which three sailors' wives, aged between 86 and 94, candidly recount their remarkably emancipated lives in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. They raised children, managed the household and finances, bought houses, and made major decisions without consulting their seafaring husbands. They enjoyed, so to speak, unprecedented autonomy in a period when strict gender roles still prevailed.