Saskia Vredeveld

Marion Bloem - A 70 Year-Old Girl

After the death of her husband Ivan, writer Marion Bloem must rebuild her life. While painting, she processes her pain and grief, as she has not yet found the words to put her emotions on paper. Later, the poems come, and after a long inner process, she writes a book. A film about love, loss, and the transformative power of creativity.

A Fool's Paradise

A cinematic road trip through South Africa. As a Dutch-South-African filmmaker, Saskia Vredeveld asks herself the question: 'did I become a racist, because I grew up in a racist country?' Therefore she embarks on a journey, from Cape Town to the heart of South Africa, to the towns whose 'white' names are about to be erased from the map such as Amsterdam and Rotterdam. What contradictory feelings does she have regarding her country? Is there still a future for the white people in the new South Africa?

The Asylum

Made in collaboration with photographer Roger Ballen, THE ASYLUM is a surrealistic haven where the lust for power and the desire to love are penetratingly portrayed.

Leaving Mandela Park

Five lively kids use art to escape from the Mandela Park township in Cape Town, South Africa.

Leaving Mandela Park

Five lively kids use art to escape from the Mandela Park township in Cape Town, South Africa.

Memento Mori

Viewed from the world of Roger Ballen. Ballen is renowned for his confronting and bleak black and white portraits of marginalised South Africans. Melle van Essen follows in Ballen’s footsteps by creating 'Living' photographs with fixed frames and strong black and white contrasts with great emphasis on composition.

My Beloved Country

A provocative look from within at Afrikaner extremists who, in 1991, clung to the belief that they were the chosen ‘super race’ of Africa. With the demise of white rule, many of these Boers lived in fear. Some had banded into paramilitary groups, such as Eugene Terre’Blanche’s Afrikaner Resistance Movement, which claimed wide support within the South African army and police. They were preparing for an armed showdown with the new government.