Bewaarders plot
“People are extreme in here: unpredictable, anxious, violent. You have to be so alert, always. I see everything, hear everything, smell everything; you must be in those guys' heads. What does he think, what does he see? Talking, making contact, gaining trust, also for my own safety. I observe them, but they also watch me, perhaps even more.' So says a prison guard in Marc Schmidt's documentary Keepers. Schmidt had the unique opportunity to follow the daily work of guards in the brand new prison in Zaanstad, the largest and most modern in the Netherlands, from the very beginning.