Monikondee

A boatman delivers cargo to remote Indigenous and Maroon communities along the river bordering Suriname and French Guiana. His winding journey offers an inside look into the complex challenge of maintaining local customs in the face of rampant gold mining, multinational corporations, and a changing climate.

Monikondee is the second feature documentary I worked on with Lonnie van Brummelen and Siebren de Haan.

Apart from colour work the project required some paint and patch-up vfx work to remove Gopro cameras and preserve continuity.

Credits
written and directed byTolin Alexander, Lonnie van Brummelen, Siebren de Haan
cinematographySander Coumou, Siebren de Haan
editingBobbie Roelofs, Lonnie van Brummelen
producerLonnie van Brummelen
production companyVriza

Instant Dreams

Instant Dreams is a feature documentary by Willem Baptist (who I collaborated with on many of his previous films, like Wild boar and I’m Never Afraid!) about the fascination and love for Polaroids. When Polaroid announced the end of instant film in 2008, the last still working factory was bought by a small group of enthusiasts.

Among them is the retired scientist Stephen Herchen who previously collaborated with the inventor of Polaroid and is still trying to unravel the secret of the lost chemical formula.

Instant Dreams was lensed by Gregor Meerman, using his Arri Alexa to shoot absolutely stunning material. I’ve received a lot of compliments on the look of Instant Dreams, but really Gregor deserves most the credit. Some additional material was shot using a drone, some GH4 on a gimbal and some Black Magic Pocket Cinema camera – which needed to be seamlessly matched with the Arri Alexa material. And there was a substantial amount of archive footages – some of it scanned from the original 16mm negatives, but other elements were pulled directly off Youtube. So a lot of additional work was done restoring the material to hold up in cinematic projection.

Credits
written and directed byJasper Coppes
cinematographer
editorTralala
producerLonnie van Brummelen
production companyVriza