Siebren de Haan

Along the Maroni River between Suriname and French Guiana, Boogie, a boatman, transports fuel and supplies to remote Maroon and Indigenous communities by motorized canoe. As gold mining, floods, and corporate exploitation reshape life along the river, each stop becomes a place of exchange — of goods, stories, and songs. Moving against the current, he must navigate obligations to his clan, the river, and an unforgiving economy.

An immersive initiation into the life of a Maroon community in the former Dutch colony of Suriname. Combining stories of African ancestral traditions and escaped slavery with enacted contemporary rituals, the film explores how the community’s powerful ties to the land have become endangered as industries threaten to devastate the region through deforestation and mining.

The result of a two-year collaboration with the fishing community of Urk, a former island in the Netherlands. In the previous century, the Dutch closed off and drained their inland sea to reclaim new farmland. The island of Urk, situated in the middle of the sea, suddenly found itself embraced by land. Its inhabitants were expected to switch from fishing to farming, but the fishermen managed to continue their trade. They found new fishing grounds, far out in the North Sea.