Line up: Wineke Brans, Silke de Kruijf, Stefan Johnson, M., Nicolas Aanonsen
Open: 15:00 - 20:00 hrs
Tickets: € Free
15.00-16.30 Film projections
16.30-16.45 Q&A with the Filmmakers
"The Sea, the Unseen and the Underdog" by Wineke Brans, 34'
The Sea, the Unseen and the Underdog explores invisibilities on the Japanese island of Okinawa. It shows how Okinawa and its people have been, and in many ways still are, unseen. The current presence of numerous U.S. military bases, and a government that refuses to listen, reflects a history of occupation and discrimination.
In the film, the sea navigates from Okinawa as the unseen toward the spiritual world, where kami (spirits) bridge the past and the present. The invisible holds both pain and peace; it reminds of dark memories but also shapes Okinawan identification — a weaponless land, a people with chimugukuru, a warm heart filled with good intentions.
Traditional art forms are forms of prayer, believed to hold the power to make the invisible visible. Music and dance guide us toward unseen sentiments and the spiritual world.
The film, which slowly moves from dark to light and gradually makes its people visible, outlines the dreams of Okinawans. It relies on experimental storytelling that incorporates elements of ethnofiction, co-collaboration.
"Skate Unnies" by Silke de Kruijf, 50'
Skate Unnies is an ethnographic documentary film set in Seoul and Daejeon, South Korea, following a queer-friendly, feminist skateboarding group as they create space for themselves in a society that values conformity. In a culture where standing out can invite gossip or judgement, these skaters find freedom, joy, and solidarity through skateboarding.
Through late-night skate sessions, small acts of encouragement, and shared vulnerability, the film shows how care is at the center of this community. The skaters cheer each other on for the smallest achievements and avoid the competitive atmosphere often found in skateboarding. For them, skating is a soft form of resistance, reclaiming public space, challenging gender stereotypes, and expressing themselves outside traditional expectations of femininity.
Skate Unnies follows the group as they navigate what it means to be inclusive. What started as a girls-only safe space slowly became more open to queer identities and people of different genders, though not without careful thought and discussion. These moments show that creating a safe space is an ongoing process, shaped by care, boundaries, and trust. More than a film about skateboarding, Skate Unnies is a story about community.
Combined
These two films explore how overlooked communities in East Asia navigate visibility and identity within systems that seek to silence them. The Sea, the Unseen and the Underdog takes us to Okinawa, where histories of occupation have made the island and its people invisible. Through experimental storytelling and traditional art forms, the film reveals how the unseen such as spirits, memories, and emotions, shapes Okinawan identity. Skate Unnies , set in South Korea, follows a queer-friendly feminist skateboarding group creating freedom and care in a conformist society. Through small acts of solidarity, they transform skateboarding into a form of quiet resistance. Together, these films show how people make themselves visible: through movement, art, and spirit, reclaiming space and identity in the face of invisibility.
17.00-18.10 Film projections
18.10-18.25 Q&A with the Filmmakers
" Kamaan Marra - كمان مره -" by Stefan Johnson, 42'
In a country where there are more diasporic Palestinians than original inhabitants, one might expect there to be a certain Pro-Palestinian governmental attitude. But with over half of its population identifying as Palestinian, Jordan has friendly relations with Israel and represses voices pointing this out. So then how do Palestinians -who usually are unable to return to their homes in Palestine for various reasons- in Jordan navigate their identity and what are they able to do in order to achieve their common goal of living in a free Palestine?
For this, Kamaan Marra follows the Palestinian dance group Majdal, who mix contemporary and traditional ‘dabke’ and their origins of the Baqa’a refugee camp. Here we learn more about what resistance can look like in an everyday context and where agency can be found in precarious situations.
"Who Cares?" by M., 26'
More than one million households in the Netherlands employ domestic workers, care workers, or cleaners. Due to the informal nature of domestic work in Dutch law, many of the people performing this work are undocumented migrants workers from the Global South. Testimonies of Care follows the story of the Undocumented Migrant Domestic Workers Theater Collective in writing, discussing, and rehearsing their play “Who Cares?” through recordings of their rehearsals entirely shot via an action cam on an endlessly rotating platform.
Surrendered to the slow pace of the relentlessly turning camera, the viewer is voyeuristically put at the centre of a political collective grappling with the injustices of the global care chain and the European migration regime. The question of who cares is examined more literally when the filmmaker starts following the domestic workers outside the theatre space into the practices of care that constitute their lives.
Carefully, a set of visual testimonies of the lives entangled in the global care chain emerge. Through an observational and sensorial eye, Testimonies of Care explores the invisibilized acts of care work that exist behind closed doors, through phone screens, and practically in a community of theatre makers that are trying to fight for better rights in an increasingly hostile political climate.
Combined
These films explore repression and migrant identity. Who cares? follows the story of the Undocumented Migrant Domestic Workers Theater Collective in writing, discussing, and rehearsing their play “Who Cares?” through recordings of their rehearsals entirely shot via an action cam on an endlessly rotating platform. In Kamaan Marra - كمان مره - we connect with the in Jordan situated Palestinian dance group Majdal that, by mixing contemporary and traditional Palestinian dance, enables Palestinians to express their identity. By looking into creative groups, these films search how migrants navigate their identity in a restricted context.
Nicolas (Friday 7th)
18.30-19.05 Film projection
19.05-19.20 Q&A with the Filmmaker
"I is the Root" by Nicolas Aanonsen, 33'
“How can the fruit be different from its roots?” Set between the rainforests of Jamaica and the snow-covered valleys of Norway, I Is the Root follows Jacob, a Jamaican-Norwegian man, as he navigates the spiritual and ecological legacies of his ancestry through music, plant medicine, and Rastafari philosophy.
In Norway, Jacob lives in a remote valley near Oslo, where he hosts ecological retreats and practices herbal medicine. In Jamaica, he becomes a student again, living with his uncle Tchandela, a bush doctor and philosopher rooted in Jah Rastafari cosmology. Through daily “reasonings,” Tchan teaches herbal knowledge as an expression of ancestral memory and spiritual vision.
The film weaves these teachings into Jacob’s life in Norway, unfolding as a visual ethnography of kinship and transmission. Jamaican poet Rassrod opens the narrative: “We are all born with sight; what we lack is vision.” Between dub rhythms and meditative silences, we meet Moogah, a bush doctor, and Ina, an ethnobotanist who reflects on the limits of academia.
As Jacob and Tchan gather herbs and uncover traces of colonial history, the film meditates on return- how roots live on through those who listen. The final scene lingers in stillness: nothing said, everything shared.