From schools and offices to hospitals and streets, cleaners are working everywhere, tirelessly and modestly. They work hard and keep society running. Invisible confronts viewers with their own involvement and reveals the price paid for the appearances we cherish.
In 2004, a urinal was voted the most influential work ever in modern art. Famed artist and provocateur Marcel Duchamp claimed to have created “Fountain”—or rather, he bought the mass-produced product and signed it—but according to some, it is the lesser-known, flamboyant Dadaist artist Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven who should take credit for transforming this much-discussed porcelain “piss pot” into art.
What did the women and children experience in the Japanese internment camps in the Dutch East Indies? What wounds and traumas remained, and how did they cope with them throughout their lives? The camps left significant scars. Many of these have not yet healed or disappeared.
Filmmaker Joris Koptod Nioky moves in with his 71-year-old mother Rian to film her reflecting on motherhood. When he shows her a temporary edit, Rian is overcome by sadness and withdraws from collaboration. Her sadness quickly turns into anger that ends in a battle to have the movie banned.
In Hemelsleutel, Digna Sinke introduces us to Lea, the protagonist of a potential feature film she is making. Lea is asked to document the energy transition in the port area of Amsterdam, dissecting local politics and interests. What starts out as a professional venture, soon turns into something much more personal, as a flood of memories and associations bubble up within Lea. Slowly though, Digna’s own memories and Lea’s story start to merge, and as the boundaries between them become increasingly unclear, the film unfurls from a place of fiction into a more reflective and reflexive documentary.
