MONIKONDEE

directed by Tolin Alexander & Lonnie van Brummelen & Siebren de Haan
with the participation of Maroon and Indigenous communities in Suriname
length: 103 min. | premiere: Cinéma du Réel, Paris, 2025

Boogie is the film’s narrator, sharing this role with the people he encounters. The multi-voiced narrative of this hybrid, participatory documentary draws inspiration from the mato, a collective Maroon storytelling technique in which the storyteller is interrupted by others who add their own stories and songs.

The script was developed in dialogue with the participants, and in the film, they re-enact their own lives. A selection of interviews conducted during the research is published on the Monikondee research page (link below).

Dutch cinema release: Cinema Delicatessen
Festival distribution: pascale@pascaleramonda.com
Educational distribution: renato@utopiadocs.net

Streaming (Netherlands): Monikondee is now available on Picl

Monikondee received the Prix du Patrimoine Culturel Immatériel (Intangible Heritage Award) 2025 at the 47th edition of Cinéma du Reél, jury’s praise: Against the current of a border river, this film navigates between two shores, carrying several people along. It begins with the “Free Men”—the Ndyuka, Pamaka, and Aluku Maroons—whose ancestors fled and resisted slavery. Today, they face a new form of capitalism—no longer slavery, but a market economy that gradually erodes the social structures they built in freedom, deep within the forest. The cultural imagination persists, even as its practices wane—a sense of loss that this film invites us to share. With a conversational approach, the film engages with the painful yet invigorating questions of culture—a notion now widely embraced, even in the Amazon.

Monikondee received two special mentions at ecological filmfestival Pianeta Mare in Napoli, 2025, from the expert jury and the youth jury, jury’s praise: Special mention from the expert jury — later echoed by the youth jury — for Monikondee, a film that gives voice to the Indigenous communities of Guyana and Suriname, threatened by mining exploitation and river pollution. A work described as “visually and morally powerful, calling for a rethinking of the price of progress.”

Monikondee received the Human Rights Award at the MOVE IT! 21. Filmfestival für Menschenrechte, jury’s praise: The film moves with almost dance-like ease through heavy themes such as climate change, the excesses of capitalism, colonial structures, and geopolitical power games. Through the intimacy of its protagonists and the courage to tell its story in a kaleidoscopic way, Monikondee allows us to understand geopolitics on the level of lived experience. More…

RELEASE
Netherlands: Cinema Delicatessen, 37 cinema’s, 20 November 2025 – 11 February 2026

LIMITED RELEASE
Suriname: TBL Parmaribo, 8 November 2025 – 21 January 2026
French-Guyana: Mois du Doc, educational screenings in Maripasoula, Papaiston, Cayenne, Manna, St.-Laurent-du-Maroni, November 2025

direction: Tolin Alexander, Lonnie van Brummelen, Siebren de Haan with the participation of the Kalina and Wayana Indigenous peoples, and the Pamaka, Aluku and Ndyuka Fiiman peoples | protagonist: Josef Adijontoe aka Boogie | line-producer: Ann Hermelijn | casting: Tolin Alexander | director of photography: Sander Coumou | camera concept & additional cinematography: Siebren de Haan | set sound: Idi Lemmers | voice-over recording: Daniël Stewart | montage: Bobbie Roelofs, Lonnie van Brummelen | sound design & mix: Jaim Sahuleka | post production image: Barend Onneweer | drawing on poster: Rossel Chaslie | poster and title design: Janna Meeus | montage trailer 1: Bouba Dola | montage trailer 2: Lonnie van Brummelen