participatory film project by the Dutch artists-filmmakers Lonnie van Brummelen and Siebren de Haan, and the Surinamese theatermaker Tolin Alexander i.c.w. Maroon and Indigenous communities in the Marowijne River watershed in Suriname
Contemporary urbanites often think that there is no alternative to capitalism, but in Indigenous and Maroon communities in Suriname’s interior the money economy did not play a major role until recently. The forest communities based their economies on other social technologies than money. Also nowadays the inhabitants usually don’t buy their primary necessities in stores, but produce these themselves by fishing, hunting, gathering and cultivating.
Societies where goods and services can be bought, are referred to as “moni kondee”, money country. For centuries this world was far from their villages, but as large-scale logging and mining are destroying the bio-diverse ecosystems on which the communities depend for their food supply, they become increasingly dependent on money.
Can the ancestral techniques be re-mobilized to counteract the degradation of their social structures and environment? The film will be developed in consultation with Maroons and Indigenous.
Supported by Netherlands Filmfund, Mondriaan Foundation, Dutch Culture, and Amsterdam Fund for the Arts, Fonds 21
