Maartje Wegdam

Maartje Wegdam is an independent documentary director exploring personal and psychological perspectives on what makes us human through innovative ways of storytelling. She previously directed the award-winning feature documentary No Place for a Rebel about former child soldier Opono Opondo. Over the years, Maartje has been developing a hands-on method whereby she explores her subjects closely together with her protagonists. Her practice involves research in film or audio form, gradually finding the story through collaborative moments. The story is then further developed hand in hand with the form or medium. In the case of Lacuna, the idea to use VR came from the research conversations in which Sonja recalls her first-person memories in the present time. Around that idea, the work of Lacuna slowly took shape in close collaboration with the multidisciplinary team.