The Takeaway

Milan van Helvoort
2025-09-26

A naïve employee at a Chinese restaurant is mistaken for being Asian, even though he considers himself just a white Dutch guy. A comic thriller about a disorienting search for one’s true identity.
10
15 min

Mino is an average white Dutch boy. But when a kid mocks him with slanted eyes, and he gets called a fucking Chinese at the restaurant where he works, disbelief and doubt begin to creep in. His parents insist that he’s ‘just Dutch’, like them. After a heated confrontation, Mino undergoes a transformation, and in this graduation film, for the first time he sees what he really looks like. A comic thriller, based on the filmmaker’s own experiences, about racism and the alienating moment of realising your appearance doesn’t match the culture you’ve grown up in your whole life.