DUNYA AND DESIE

Humorous youth series about the friendship of two teenage girls living in the suburbs of Amsterdam.

15-year-old teenagers Dunya and Desie are best friends and can’t wait to become older. Desie has three secrets.
No. 1: she’s already done it with a boy (on a camping site in Spain).
No. 2: she smokes.
No. 3: she doesn’t know who her father is. Dunya also has a secret… but she won’t talk about it!

Desie is as Dutch as cheese, tulips and clogs. She lives with her single mother Monique in the flat opposite Dunya. Dunya’s family is Moroccan. The colourful Moroccan culture plays a role in each episode with issues as life and death, love and lust – but also the unreliability of cats, and the shipping a dead aunt to Marrakech. The series expressly doesn’t address the problems of 2nd and 3rd generation immigrants. It’s not about statistics or politically correct issues. “Dunya and Desie” simply shows how a new generation are trying to find their own way.

On the face of it, the events seem very normal: Saturday jobs, boyfriends, sex, family gossip, good looks and friendship. And yet something special happens each time. Dunya and Desie embrace life in such a spontaneous, self-willed and unusual way that they keep ending up in the most impossible, exciting, humorous and touching situations.

Sold in Netherlands, Germany and Sweden

Release year:

2003-2005

Director:

Dana Nechustitan

Episodes:

19

Running length:

19 X 25 minutes

Production company:

NPS

Prizes:

EMMY NOMINEE 2004 Winner of the prestigious PRIX JEUNESSE INTERNATIONAL 2004 for 12 - 15 Fiction

 

Categories:

• Children's drama
• Drama series