Jorinde Sorée: “My mum and dad relocated to Johannesburg, South Africa shortly after my birth. The impact of our helper, Derby, was much more profound than I realised as a child.”
Robert Oey: “For my parents’ anniversary, my sisters and I were ‘kidnapped’ by friends and dressed in local traditional costumes for a photo, sparking a profound sense of displacement.”
JS: “Embracing theatre acting at the Waldorf School in Zeist became a lifeline for me. Our resistance against the school’s doctrines on anthroposophy fostered enduring friendships.”
RO: “In the back of Meccano, a local café annex film theatre in Middelburg, I sat through films by Tavernier, Tanner and Tarkovsky. It made me yearn for movies like Jaws and Blade Runner.”
RO: “Having left Middelburg, I arrived in Indonesia at 17. My uncle’s inquiry about my father’s “real” identity ignited a lifelong quest of my own.”
RO: “I relished the scholarly environment at university. I spent days in libraries like the Bibliotheca Rosenthaliana and loved every minute of it.”
JS: “After my parents’ divorce, my father permanently relocated to India. In 1991, I visited India and began to realise the significant impact his decision had on my own life.”
RO: “As a production runner I accompanied British director Peter Greenaway to the lab. Watching the Baby of Mâcon dailies on the big screen, I decided to become a storyteller myself.”
JS: “Hitchhiking in Belize, I met an American missionary heading to prison to visit inmates. The women talked with me for hours and it sparked a perpetual love for chance encounters.”
RO: “I spent months in the company of Pashtun men in the North West Frontier Province of Pakistan. Their kindness was overwhelming, yet in hindsight, I sensed the complexities of 9/11.”
JS: “To do my thesis on eco-tourism in Belize was motivated by my struggle between being an observer or a participant. A struggle which lies at the heart of anthropology, if you ask me.”
RO: “Late filmmaker Hans Polak asked me to do research on Camp Duindorp; a detention facility for Dutch collaborators after WWII. I came to understand the ‘ugly carnival’ of denazification.”
JS: “My love for interviewing people led me towards documentaries. At Pieter van Huystee Film & TV I learnt how to translate narratives into visual language and oversee production.”
JS: “The beauty, the wonder and the fear that life is forever altered; these facets of motherhood are treasures I will not trade for the world.”
RO: “One of the joys of fatherhood is reading aloud. ‘And when you’re alone, there’s a very good chance you’ll meet things that scare you right out of your pants, but on you will go.’
(Dr. Seuss)
RO: “I look back with great satisfaction on writing and directing Wonderland. Especially because I was given the freedom to express my associative ideas in a cinematic narrative.”
RO: “The Haitian driver yelled: ‘Moi, je suis un citoyen aussi!’ Learning about Haiti’s fight for independence and seeing their suffering, gave new meaning to the idea of colonial debt.”
RO: “And you, my father, there on the sad height, Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray. Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
(Dylan Thomas)
JS: “During the grand premiere of Jessica Gorter’s 900 Days in St. Petersburg the tension among decorated survivors and the disbelief from the youth made an indelible impression.”
JS: “My search for Derby and my reunion with her after forty years was a profound experience. Regrettably, she died a year later.”
RO: “My documentary The Mission aimed to explore UN military involvement in Mali but didn’t convey its message as intended, leading me to reconsider my approach to filmmaking.”
RO: “I have come to cherish both completed and unrealised projects. My idea for a documentary event on Dutch journalist Willem Oltmans stands as my most beloved, yet unfulfilled dream.”
JS: “Being an executive producer on Claire Pijman’s documentary Robby Müller: Living the Light was a truly collective experience, which contributed to the extraordinary journey it became.”
RO: “I never felt the need for heroes until I met Brian Mizer. In the series Terror he criticised the US government while in uniform. Brian, wherever you are, you are truly an American hero.”
“Should it not be Les Citrons or The Lemons? Or is Les short for Leslie? And why those lemons? Does it matter?”