Blame Omar

Following the Dutch defeat to Russia (3-1) in the quarterfinals of the European Cup soccer competition in 2008, documentary filmmaker Michiel Brongers left the Amsterdam bar where he had been watching the match with his friends. A little later, he was lying on the tram tracks with two broken legs. He had been run over by Omar, who thought he could drive around him. It takes months for Brongers to recuperate, a period in which his girlfriend gives birth, life goes on - with difficulty - and he thinks increasingly often about Omar, who remains the villain of the tale. Michiel Brongers relates all this out loud in this personal documentary, in which he attempts to reconstruct the accident, records his recovery and reflects on whether it would make sense to confront Omar with his questions. He puts it to his girlfriend, who has an astonishing ability to distill facts from emotions. Brongers also interviews the friends who were with him on that fateful evening. Looking directly into the camera, they calmly answer his questions, fill the gaps in his memory and offer him support and answers. These scenes give the film an extra dimension, for as well as being about an accident with huge physical and mental consequences, it is also about deep and moving friendship.