HOME
video, 40 minutes, 2022
installation for 3 screens
In the spring of 2020, confined to my apartment in Amsterdam, I place a camera in front of one of the windows. Besides houses, the space visible from this frame consists of a quay, a canal, a small square for sports and a railway bridge. It is not a special place, I have never paid special attention to it. But what defines this space? In what way is it defined by time, the people and animals I see using it, the objects placed in it, or the water running through? In a wordless visual flow of standstill and movement, HOME explores the sense of space and time in the city.
Marco Niemeijer - writer, director, image, sound recording, editor / Selle Sellink - sound design, sound mixing / Diego Gutiérrez - editing advice / seriousFilm Marc Thelosen & Koert Davidse - producersLight - No Light
video, experimental sketches, 2021-2024
Garden of Life
video, 71 minutes, 2017
When my father in law Leo, a man of many interests and usually wanting to travel, starts suffering from Alzheimers’s, he withdraws more and more in the confined space of his backyard. Inspecting every detail of the garden, feeling the leaves, testing the firmness of plants and trees and removing withered flowers, he seems to find something in this space he no longer finds elsewhere. What does it mean to him? And how do these few square meters of created nature connect with the changes going on in his brain? Visiting him monthly in the garden, spending time with him without asking a lot of questions, I witness Leo changing as his garden runs wilder. Inside the house, in Leo’s old study he no longer visits, there are cupboards stacked with fading video tapes of all Leo’s travels.
Marco Niemeijer - writer, director, image, sound recording, editing, production / Selle Sellink - sound design, sound mix, additional sound recordings / Gerhard van der Beek - grading / Put Gootink - graphic design / seriousFilm Marc Thelosen & Koert Davidse - post production
Little Angels
video, 76 minutes, 2015
Shortly before her death, my step-grandmother Enny (97), living in New York, presents a box with old 8 mm films. These films show daily scenes from Enny’s first marriage in Amsterdam in the 1930’s. They show her first two daughters, Glenda and Myrna, who both later will be killed in Auschwitz.
When Enny speaks of her only living daughter, Tascha, born shortly after the war, she is mostly angry and disappointed. In her thinking, Tascha shows no compassion with her suffering. Visiting Tascha after Enny’s death however, I find her surrounded by her mother's items, wearing her jewellery and hairpin. Enny is everywhere. Everything in Tascha’s life, 68 years old, seems to lead to her mother. Whether it’s the husband she married or her passion for knitting, each story leads to Enny - and eventually to the children that were not there.
Little Angels deals with a complex mother-daughter relationship and the traumas of war passed on over the generations.
Marco Niemeijer - writer, director / Gregor Meerman - image / Tim van Peppen - sound / Danniel Danniel - editing / Mark Glynne - sound design, sound mix / Alex Simu - music / Gerhard van der Beek - grading / Sabine Verschueren - graphic design / Windmill Film & Joodse Omroep - producers
This is not about me
video, 56 minutes, in assignment, 2021
What is it like to be autistic and non-speaking in a world that has already made up its mind about you? Jordyn Zimmerman dreams of becoming a teacher and starts out eager to learn at school, but soon she is separated from the other children. Unable to communicate, teachers think she is also unable to understand or learn. Year after year, her behavior worsens. She is restrained and placed in seclusion, finding herself caught in a system that unintentionally turns her life into a living nightmare.
Finally, at the age of 18, with the help of educators who see her differently, Jordyn manages to turn her fate and flourish.
Marco Niemeijer - writer, director, image, sound recording, editor, producer / Selle Sellink - sound design, sound mix / Arend Bruijn - music / AW art department - graphic design / Gerhard van der Beek - grading / Diego Gutierrez - editing advice
Until 8 pm
16mm, 15 minutes, 1998, graduation film Rietveld Academy
