Projects
LACUNA
↳ Première: 54th edition IFFR
↳ Synopsis
Sonja has no memory of the crucial moment in her early childhood that saved her life: the separation from her parents in 1943. The discovery of three silver rings that once belonged to Sonja’s parents triggers the director to begin prompting her about the past.
In the emotional journey that follows, you accompany Sonja through skewed memories, elusive images and re-imaginations towards one moment of loss and grief during the Second World War. A true story that leads you from Paramaribo to Amsterdam and into a psychiatric facility called Het Apeldoornsche Bosch.
Combining conversations with Sonja, mesmerizing 3D modelling, animation and personal footage, Lacuna explores who we are in relation to who we were. Meanwhile you will find truth in imagination, beauty in the unknown and an act of unconditional love.
↳Credits
Directed by Maartje Wegdam & Nienke Huitenga Broeren
Scenario Maartje Wegdam
Creative developer and art direction Harm van de Ven
Music and Sound design Rik Nieuwdorp
Visual design Matunda Groenendijk, Frank Bosma, Aron Fels
A Podium Biarritz production, in co-production with Copper Views Film Production and Studio Biarritz.
Supported by V-fonds, Mondriaan Fund, AFK, ZOZ fund and the Netherlands Film Fund
DRIFT
↳ Premiered: IDFA DocLab 2024
↳ Synopsis
DRIFT is an audio odyssey and an openworld podcast, that generates a never ending daynamic listening experience in your favourite podcast app. Step into a techo-fluid future of the Netherlands, 500 years from now. A world where water logged country, AI infused systems and a post-climate crisis society blossoms.
↳Credits
Showrunner Nienke Huitenga
Tech lead Hay Kranen
Audio lead Lieven Heeremans
Dynamic music composition Mark IJzerman
Additional music Suzie Hagens
Narrative design Minem Sezgin, Iza Marley, Nienke Huitenga
Editor-in-chief Abel Enklaar
Produced by Studio ZZZAP and VPRO Medialab
Supported by De Machinerie and Creative Industries Fund NL
(this conversation is) OFF THE RECORD
↳ Premiered at IDFA DocLab fall 2023
↳ Synopsis
In this performative lecture, Nirit Peled investigates crime-prevention algorithms, and their profound impact on people’s lives. The performances build on her decade-long study of the consequences of risk-based profiling by Dutch police. In OFF THE RECORD she takes a deep dive into the systems that are supposed to predict which young individuals will become criminals. The focus is on the algorithm developed by the police being used as a risk assessment instrument. In front of a live audience, Peled presents individual people as both humans and datasets to show the workings of this algorithm in situations based on real-life events. People who are adversely affected by this kind of profiling have no one to turn to; no one is accountable. The main characters are a journalist, a police officer, a human rights lawyer, and 125 youngsters. Peled combines radical imagination with thorough research to pose these questions: Can anyone’s life truly be captured in data? Who writes the script that dictates our lives?
Supported by the Film Fund DocLab Interactive Grant 2023, AFK and Creative Industries Fund NL
↳ Credits
Director Nirit Peled
Co-director Anne Maike Mertens
Narration Nirit Peled, Janneke Remmers,
Jelle Klaas
Creative development Nienke Huitenga
Technical artist Leeza Pritychenko, Keez Duyves, Aron Fels
Graphic Design Amir Avraham
Character design Leeza Pritychenko
Music Juho Nurmela
Motion capture performance Amit Palgi, C’Cesirhe Lesley Sedney, IDlab
Production Nienke Huitenga, Titus Nouwens
WINWIN A CONSENSUS ALGORITHM
↳ Premiered in 2021 - in collaboration with SETUP and Library Utrecht
↳ Synopsis
A new ritual for democracy. Conversational experiences online often go sideways, down the meaningless customer chatbot vortex or toxic discussion trolling. While technology accelerates and creates new practices, democracy lags behind in old structures. This friction results in a society that is too impatient to listen to each other to have a decent exchange of perspectives. Creators Nienke Huitenga and James Bryan Graves see WINWIN as a new routine for democracy that matches the empathic nature of humans and the harmonizing potential of an algorithm.
The experience. WINWIN is a participatory and performative experience for a small group of people guided by an algorithm: they debate a societal issue, dressed in playful statements, to discover common ground within the group. It can be played in any language you’d like as long as the group can speak/write it. WINWIN softly installs a person in a pleasant ambiance designed for anonymity, and at the same time make the 'person-node' a radically equal player in a group.
WINWIN celebrates consensus as a key outcome.
↳ Tour
Dutch Design Week (2020), Impakt festival (2020), SETUP pre-election online event (2021), het Grootste Kennisfestival (2021), Library tour (Deventer, Zwolle, Wageningen 2021), Theatrical try out in collaboration with SETUP and Library Utrecht 2021.
↳ Credits
Creators Nienke Huitenga & James Bryan Graves
Digital design Vera van de Seyp & Karina Zavidova
Sound design Mark Meeuwenoord
Scenography and technical design: Sanne van Deijl, Ivo Koolen
Projectpartner: SETUP
Supported by Creative Industries Fund NL, City of Utrecht and Sandberg@Mediapark Masterclass (2019)
ROZSYPNE
↳ Premiered in 2019 - IDFA DocLab, immersive non-fiction competition.
↳ Synopsis
A roomscale VR story about Nina, an old lady trying to preserve daily life in the Eastern-Ukrainian warzone, with the MH17-crash at her doorstep.
In the summer of 2014, the village of Rozsypne in the eastern Ukrainian countryside found itself in the midst of a raging civil war, the lives of its inhabitants unsettled by the destruction and chaos at their doorstep. But the suffering of Rozsypne only made international news after Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down, killing all 298 passengers and raining debris, bodily remains and other traces of human life over the fields and homes of the village—whose name translates as “scattered.”
While international coverage of the crash mostly centered on Western European lives, this poetic roomscale VR experience offers a fragmented window into the life of Nina, an elderly woman living in Rozsypne. Moving through the distinctive Ukrainian sunflower fields, we witness the details of Nina’s austere but cozy home and experience the feeling of this faraway reality up close. A vivid and brightly colored exploration of mourning, endurance, and common human feeling.
↳ Tour
IDFA Doclab (2019, premier and in competition), Wintertuin festival (2019), fundraise event for Ukraine at Grey Space in The Middle (feb 2022), fundraise event for Ukraine at W139 Amsterdam (mar 2022), Into The Great Wide Open (2022), Bookstore De Utrechtse Boekenbar (10 days during ‘boekenweek’ 2022), Sheffield DocFest (2022, in competition), Drim Short Film Festival in Macedonia (2022), Library event about digital literature LocHal Tilburg Netherlands (2022, September).
↳ Credits
Director Nienke Huitenga Broeren & Lisa Weeda
Screenplay Lisa Weeda
Technical lead & artist Frank Bosma
Developer Corin Donders, Hans van Arken
Animation Hans van Arken, Berry de Jong, NMTRIX Animation Studios
Additional development: Quincy Norbert, Jamel Ziaty
Production Studio ZZZAP
Executive producer Nienke Huitenga-Broeren
Advisory Ukraine: Oksana Parafeniuk, Mariia Ponomarova
Music Mark IJzerman
Sound design Dennis Gaens
Sound Studio Moskou Studio
Nina is performed by
Narration Marina Grigorievna Gulmomadova & Svitlana
Model Margriet Jans-Teunissen
Motion Capture Anastasiia Liubchenko
Additional voice direction: Mariia Ponomarova
ROZSYPNE was supported by Dutch Foundation for Literature, deBuren and the City of Utrecht
