Marjoleine Boonstra
2021
Koeraaj Koeraaj
Marjoleine Boonstra
A journey based on tales of the wind, about life and death, through the land of the kuraï (tumbleweed), where nothing is as it seems. A withered, thorny, uprooted bush rolls over the bare steppe. It's a kurai, a tumbleweed. It appears dead. But in this land nothing is what it seems. An old woman tells how she can still be surprised by the kurai. Like a young man, it leaves its seed on the plain. It brings messages from far away. It has been everywhere, and everywhere keeps its ear to the ground. It has taken much, and has left much behind.
Kurai Kurai
Among Horses and Men
Marjoleine Boonstra
In the vast desert of Nevada, two raw and unpolished worlds come together. With the rugged mountains and vivid colors in the background, wild men and horses are vulnerably facing off. Chris, Dean, Gilbert, Charles, Steven, Bo and Mike are all young inmates at the Northern Nevada Correctional Center, in the last phase of lengthy prison sentences. Before returning to society, they are participating in a special project that allows them to capture, tame and train wild horses for periodic auctions. Filmmaker Marjoleine Boonstra follows the detainees over the course of three months of intensive training, during which time the men see themselves reflected in the eyes of their horses. The men learn to win the trust of another living being once again, a skill that has slipped away during their time on the inside. Horses are incredibly perceptive creatures: they take the men as they are, without a history, without a record, but only if the men are just as open and vulnerable as they are.
Among Horses and Men
Haven, omzwervingen in de nacht
Marjoleine Boonstra
Nocturnal life in the partly deserted dock area of Amsterdam. Director Marjoleine Boonstra encounters lone wolves, leading secluded lives in makeshift shelters, and people that work as pilots, night watchmen or skippers. According to a young pilot `it was actually like a dream', working by the IJ river at night. And this is what it looks like: a dream world. Between interviews, Boonstra makes her camera glide through the area, along the quay, across the water, along cranes, containers and sea-going vessels. A world of lamps, reflections and shadows. In this landscape of stone and metal, an extraordinary group of individuals lives and works. For example, an English woman cleans up a submarine for a party, a refugee from former Yugoslavia has created a place for himself and a night watchman has to `see to it that that boat stays where it is'. Peaceful music emphasises the relative quiet, in which the interviewees reflect on their lives and the harbour.
Haven, Roaming Through the Night