Sonja has no memory of the crucial moment in her childhood that saved her life: the separation from her parents in 1943. 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, you accompany her through skewed memories, elusive images, and re-imaginations towards one moment of loss and grief during the Second World War.
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.
Immersive director Nienke Huitenga-Broeren blends digital art and immersive experiences. Her creative career unfolds through captivating online transmedia works, like Human Birdwings and The Modular Body (by Floris Kaayk). The last claimed the prestigious Golden Calf in 2016 for pioneering interactivity. Her first VR work ROZSYPNE (2019) in co-direction with Lisa Weeda, depicting the onset of the war in East Ukraine in 2014 and the downing of flight MH17. It premiered in competition at IDFA DocLab. Last fall, she explored generative techniques in audio, where she created DRIFT (2024) in collaboration with VPRO Medialab. A post-climate Netherlands emerges for your ears, co-written by writer Minem Sezgin, AI, and algorithmic processes. Her artistic practice is influenced by an interdisciplinary approach to mediated experiences: technology is never the starting point in her work, yet an important tool for addressing societal, cultural, and personal experiences.
