There Goes my Heart

It started as an experiment to bring a group of old junkies, who used to live on the streets, to a regular place to live. Seven of them were chosen out of a group of more than hundred. It's just a small place with seven rooms. Its  inhabitants – four men and three women – belong to the oldest generation of hard drug addicts.

Some of them have been addicted for more than forty years. They are real drug pensioners. Survivors who've lived a life harder than most ordinary people.

The home is their safe haven after a life on the streets. The place where they want to die. As one of the inhabitants says: 'Finally at home!' Or another one: 'Without this I would have been dead'.

The house is a regular old people's home by all standards, with one big difference: the inhabitants are allowed to continue their drug habits. Once a week it's payday. They get a limited amount of money to buy drugs. A social worker is taking care of them, looking after their health and helping them to face their daily problems.

The experiment of an old people's house for junkies has worked well. Untill now this little home is still the only one in the world.

This film captures the lives of the seven elderly drug addicts living in their new home. Each of them has his or her personal story to tell. They all have lost something significant in their lives: a great love or contact with friends and family, and in particular they've all lost touch with their own feelings. Their unfulfilled desires are still there and they still hang on to the illusion that one day their lives will improve.

Clip is partly in Dutch