Sleeping Rough portrays the encounter of two “uprooted” people: Majok, a young Sudanese illegal immigrant and Jakob, an elderly reclusive veteran. Majok occasionally seeks contact with his fellow countrymen in a local center for asylum-seekers, but he only feels at ease among the cows in the vast open plains of a Dutch polder, that remind him of his home country. But despite their superficial differences, the headstrong young man and the intractable old man come to recognize themselves in each other. Both of them bear their past as a burden. Jakob never managed to overcome his wife′s death, nor did he come to terms with his war experiences in the Dutch East Indies. Majok’s burden is “the forgotten war” in his fatherland and the homesickness he feels for his birthplace and the people he had to leave behind. The encounter of these two unusual individuals helps them to find the strength to overcome their pasts, and their friendship enables them to see a new future.