STONES HAVE LAWS

Participatory documentary by Dutch artist-filmmakers Lonnie van Brummelen and Siebren de Haan and Surinamese theater maker Tolin Alexander i.c.w. Maroon communities in the Suriname River watershed. DCP, 100 min., 2018

Stones Have Laws (De Sitonu a Weti) is an immersive initiation into the life of a Maroon community in the former Dutch colony of Suriname. Combining stories of African ancestral traditions and escaped slavery with enacted contemporary rituals, the film explores how the community’s powerful ties to the land have become endangered as industries threaten to devastate the region through deforestation and mining.

The directors closely involved the community in the development of the project, which was created using an experimental process of collective scripting. The result is a unique cinematic form that bridges filmmaking, poetry and theatre.

Stones Have Laws premiered at IDFA 2018. In 2019, it toured with a mobile cinema in Suriname’s interior. ICA London screened the film in their program Frames of Representation and gave the film theatrical release in the UK. Windmill released the film in Dutch cinema’s. A coproduction of vriza, seriousFilm and Ideal Film.

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Monikondee
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VIDEO ON DEMAND
♦ Criterion Channel, US and Canada, Oct. 2023 – March 2024
♦ Picl/Pepr, Netherlands, Juli 2023
♦ Eye Player, Netherlands
♦ Filmeducatie, Netherlands
♦ Streeen, Italy
♦ Yard Vibes, World excl. Netherlands
♦ True Story Documentary Platform, World excl. Benelux

SCREENINGS / EXHIBITIONS
2025 ♦ Festival Douarnenez , France ♦ screening at De Stem van de Aarde, Allard Pierson Museum ♦ 2024 ♦ Caribische Letteren, 1e Caribische Filmdag,Utrecht; Keti Koti Maand with Q&A in OBA Zuid organised by Dynamo Amsterdam; Filmhuis Gouda Keti Koti Program ♦ 2023 ♦ screening at Kloosterbioscoop Zwolle, 5 July ♦ Keti Koti program: screening at Filmhuis Den Haag ♦ Luxor Zuthpen ♦ Chasse Breda ♦ Cinecitta Tilburg ♦ Schuur Haarlem ♦ Kriterion Amsterdam ♦ 2022 ♦ Dag van de Marrons, Het Nationale Theater De Haag ♦ screening at De Rotterdamse Munt, Netherlands ♦ international competition of BIFED Boozcada, Turkey ♦ screening at NAKS, Paramaribo, Suriname ♦ televised by The Back Lot at Apintie and ABC during floods in Surinam’s interior ♦ screening at DRIFT: Film and Philosophy at De Uitkijk, Amsterdam, NL ♦ exhibition at Ludwig Foundation i.c.w. Havanna Biennial, Cuba ♦ exhibition Searching the Pluriverse, Het Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam, NL ♦ BOZAR i.c.w. Jubilée, screening, Brussels, BE ♦ 2021 ♦ exhibition at Video Tank #24, Foreman Art Gallery, Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada ♦ Global Extraction Film Festival, Amsterdam ♦ EYE screening in the framework of book launch Drifting Studio Practice, NL ♦ DROOG Design The World As We Don’t Know It, Amsterdam ♦ Het Nieuwe Instituut, Warming Pluriverse online program, Rotterdam, NL ♦ DAS arts Amsterdam ♦ AKI Enschede Moving Image Program ♦ televised in The Back Lot’s documentary program, Apintie and ABC ♦ 2020 ♦ International Literature Festival Winternachten, Den Haag, NL ♦ Theater de Omval, Diemen, NL ♦ Filmhuis Den Haag, NL ♦ Third Horizon Film Festival, Haiti Complex, Miami, USA ♦ Moderna Museet i.c.w. Royal Institute of Art, Stockholm, SWE ♦ Deep Focus Film Festival, Brooklyn, New York, USA ♦ Cinema of the Dam’d, Amsterdam, NL ♦ Timehre Film Festival, Georgetown, Guyana ♦ Plein Theater, Amsterdam, NL ♦ Other Cinemas, Wembley Park, Brent Borough of Culture, London, UK ♦ Filmcafé Utrecht i.c.w. Bureau Punt, NL ♦ Cinema en Plein Air, Plein Theater i.c.w. Cineblend, Amsterdam, NL ♦ FIFAC, Saint-Laurent du Maroni, French Guyana ♦ ONCA Gallery & Lost Species Day 2020, Brighton, UK ♦ ARtez Studium generale, Arnhem, NL ♦ Filmhuis Den Haag, 45 jaar onafhankelijkheid Suriname ♦ LAH Anthropology and History Laboratory ♦ Federal University, PPGAS, Museu Nacional, Rio Janeiro, Brazil ♦ 2019 ♦ mobile kino tour Surinam inland: ♦ Pikin Slee ♦ Asindohopo ♦ Jawjaw ♦ Lebidoti ♦ Tembe Art Studio, Moengo & The Back Lot, Paramaribo, SUR ♦ Film Festival Frames of Representation, ICA London ♦ Vereniging Ons Suriname, Amsterdam, NL ♦ UQ Art Museum & Queensland Film Festival i.c.w. exhibition Spellbound, Brisbane, AUS ♦ ICA Cinema, The Mall, London, UK ♦ MAC EcoFest, Midland Art Centre, Manchester, UK ♦ Bertha DocHouse, Curzon Bloomsbury The Brunswick Centre, London, UK ♦ HOME: centre for international contemporary art, theatre and film, Birmingham, UK ♦ Strode Theatre, Street, Somerset, UK ♦ WOW Wales One World Festival, Gwyl Afon-Abercych, UK ♦ Decolonial Futures Sandberg Institute, Amsterdam, NL ♦ The Ultimate Picture Palace, Oxford, UK ♦ Film by the Sea, Vlissingen, NL ♦ Jan van Eyck Academy, Padat Merayab in-Lab, Maastricht, NL ♦ Black History: More Than a Month, Pollards Hill Youth Centre, Merton Library, London, UK ♦ Festival Latino Americano Paramaribo, OnStage Performing Arts, SUR ♦ Dag van de Marrons i.c.w. Afrovibe Festival, ♦ Nationaal Theater aan het Spui, Den Haag, NL ♦ Filmhallen, Amsterdam, NL ♦ Groninger Forum, NL ♦ Louis Hartlooper Complex, Utrecht, NL ♦ Plein Theater, Amsterdam, NL ♦ Ketelhuis, Amsterdam, NL ♦ Filmhuis O42, Nijmegen, NL ♦ Lantaren Venster, Rotterdam, NL ♦ Cinecitta, Tilburg, NL ♦ International Photo Festival Noorderlicht, Groningen, NL ♦ Artishock, Soest, NL ♦ De Grote Suriname Tentoonstelling, Nieuwe Kerk Amsterdam, NL ♦ Luxor Theater, Zutphen, NL ♦ Bijlmerpark Theater, Amsterdam, NL ♦ 2018 ♦ preview INTER-NATION, European Artistic Research Conference, GradCAM, DSCA, Institute of Technology, Light House Cinema Dublin, IR ♦ World premiere: IDFA International Feature Competition & Dutch Competition, Amsterdam, NL

PRESS in English
The Guardian | The Observer, Wendy Ide (review, UK)
The Guardian, Leslie Felperin (review, UK)
BFI Sight and Sound, Ben Nicolson (review, UK)
Financial Times, Nigel Andrews (review, UK)
Total Film, Tim Coleman (review, UK)
TANK Magazine, Guy Mackinnon-Little (review, UK)
Little White Lies, David Jenkins (review, UK)
The Oxford Times, Parky at the Pictures, David Parkinson (review, UK)
Sunday Times, Edward Porter (review, UK)
London Evening Standard (review, UK)
Written Chronicle, Festival Fifac (article, French Guiana)
Dutch Culture, Ashley Swagers (article, NL)
SEE NL, Melanie Goodfellow (article, NL)
Archivo Papers Journal, Indigenous Gaze, Astrid Korporaal (article, PRT) )
E-Flux Education, Henk Slager (article)

PRESS in Dutch
Filmkrant, Jos van der Burgh (article, NL)
Cinemagazine, Gerard Kort (article, NL)
STV Suriname, Xaviera Arnhem (article, SR)
De Ware Tijd, Euritha Tjan A Way (article, SR)
De Ware Tijd, Kevin Headley (interview, SR)
Volkskrant, Berend Jan Bockting (review, NL)
NRC, Dana Linssen (review, NL)
Parool, Joost Broeren-Huitinga (review, NL)
Filmkrant, Omar Larabi (review, NL)
Filmkrant, Karin Wolfs (interview, NL)
De Kanttekening, Jaime Donata (article, NL)
Landelijk Netwerk Slavernijverleden, A. de Wildt (article, NL)
Recto Verso, Astrid Korporaal (article, BE)
MetropolisM, Zoe Dankert (article NL)
Mr Motley, Barbara Collé (article, NL)
The Low Countries, Jos van der Burg (article BE, in English/Dutch)
Filmmagie, Hugo Bernaers (article, BE)
MetropolisM, Mariska ter Horst (article, NL)
Mister Motley, Lietje Bauwens (article, NL)

SCREENING IN SURINAME'S INTERIOR

community screenings in Suriname’s interior, 2019

Stones Have Laws moving poster by Bloco Gráfico