De kinderen van Ruinerwold (Documentary, Dutch)
Status: Ended
Premiered: 2021-03-24
Ended: 2021-04-14
Network: NPO 1
Country: NL
Airs on: Wednesday
Air time: 21:30
Runtime: 60 minutes
In 2019, a 'ghost family' was discovered in the Drenthe village of Ruinerwold. The children were not registered anywhere and lived completely under the radar. The four elders talk about their lives in this four-part documentary. On October 13, 2019, a very confused young man walks into De Kastelein, a pub in the Drenthe village of Ruinerwold. The bar owner does not know at that time that the boy is one of nine children from the now world-famous "ghost family", but calls the police to be sure. For the four-part series The children of Ruinerwold, documentary maker Jessica Villerius followed the four oldest children in the family for a year and a half. They lived with their father under the radar on a farm in the village. She talks to them about the very extreme conditions in which they grew up. The youngest of the four is the boy who walked into the pub in 2019 and thus ensured that this bizarre situation became world news. How are they in their "new life"?