Digna Sinke

One night in the trenches during the Spanish Civil War, Joan Brossa heard a voice call his name. He didn't see anyone and walked towards where he thought the sound came from. A moment later, a shell hit the ground where he had just been standing. From that moment on, Brossa wanted to be a poet.

Life Is About Losing Everything is a hybrid documentary, equal parts feminist artist portrait and fantastical memoir, exploring loss and love through the lens of pop culture and art. Based on Canadian poet Lynn Crosbie’s memoir of the same name, the film follows multiple fictionalized incarnations of Crosbie as they embark on a delirious journey through the writer’s memories and imagination, encountering celebrity lookalikes, an inch-tall man, uncanny high schoolers, and a Zombie Sylvia Plath along the way. Drawing on a wealth of pop and literary references, Life Is About Losing Everything reflects on the role of art and storytelling in finding kinship and giving meaning to our lives.

Six people are about to undertake a journey by foot from the very north of the Netherlands to the very south, in search of the mountains. Only two of them reach the destination.

A young couple employed by a pet crematorium finds fulfilment in respectfully removing cadavers. Their love blossoms in an environment where the boundaries between human and animal are fading. When they hit a stray dog, their relationship starts to derail.

From the filmmaker's perspective, we follow the process of a possible feature film about a photographer (Lea) tasked with capturing the energy transition in Amsterdam's harbor area. This brings up a flood of memories and associations. What do you do with what hasn't gone well in your life? How well can you know someone dear to you? Filmmaker and character turn out to coincide more and more during the process.

Over the years, filmmaker Jan Bosdriesz collected curious souvenirs from various countries that he cherishes. He wonders about their history. Among his favourite items are the Russian LPs by Pyotr Leschenko from the 1930s that he once inherited from his father. While Bosdriesz travels to Russia to learn more about the life of the singer whose music was forbidden in Soviet Russia, the turbulent history of the filmmaker's family is also addressed. During his trip, Bosdriesz talks to people who knew Leschenko.

On a train crossing Tanzania, a rolling microcosm of East African society, we follow three main characters, reflecting on the strength to survive.

The only constant in life is change – and that applies to the Amsterdam harbour as well. As part of the energy transition, public authorities decided in 2019 to close down the coal-fired power station. This meant that a landmark on the Amsterdam skyline – Hemweg 8’s smokestack – would disappear.

The highway in the Netherlands has a total length of almost 2500 kilometres. There is almost no other country with such an enormous highway density. In this documentary the monumentality, but also the apparent everydayness of our highway is shown. The highway is actually a poorly known arena for a wide range of activities. What does this monumental and almost perfect network say about us?

In a seemingly timeless polder in Brabant's Biesbosch in Southern Holland seasons pass by over unaltered prestine landscape. Change comes when the land is assigned to become a flood area. From the perspective of the tree we see machines and tractors move into the area.

During the International Film Festival Rotterdam in 2002, Leo Hannewijk (festival director Film by the Sea) approached filmmaker and producer Digna Sinke with the idea of asking several film makers to make short films based on poems about the province of Zeeland. It would offer an opportunity to investigate the limits of the medium film and, just like poetry, not to focus on the story but to tackle universal and grander themes through mood and form. In the end, eight short films were realized, by eight different filmmakers. The films are connected by intermezzi, aerial shots of the Zeeland coasts. Poems of the Sea is a stirring and surprising portrayal of Zeeland. Filled with desires and passion.

A biography of Isabelle de Charrière and her friendship with Benjamin Constant.

The story of those Italian women who, for eighty years, have fought against power in all its forms.

How do you deal with the fact that someone close to heart has suddenly disappeared without a trace? Can you go on living whilst waiting for his return?

Wistful Wilderness

In The State of the Grass, the battle that people are waging with their lawn is portrayed. We see that battle through the eyes of a hedgehog and a magpie. The magpie will mainly observe the people from above or from a distance and the hedgehog, on the other hand, sits close to it, scurrying through the plants. The people who will be observed are everyday people who want to have a perfect lawn. They constantly have to overcome new obstacles in their search for the perfect grass. Through the eyes of the magpie and the hedgehog we experience their frustrations. But also the passion that people feel or the satisfaction when they have solved a problem.

In a drought-struck region in India, suffering from climate change and a high suicide rate amongst farmers, a group of resilient women farmers, who recently lost their husbands, is coming together with a local psychologist to learn counselling and help others in grief.

Unrelenting pessimism dominates this slow-paced, dark film, the debut feature from director Digna Sinke dedicated to an archetypal born loser named Marian (Josee Ruiter). Marian is a journalist who has been working in Latin America and who arrives home just after her father dies to find out that the man she had married for purely political reasons might be deported because the authorities found out he was not living with her. Meanwhile, Marian is upset that her mother and sister are keeping her mentally handicapped brother in an institution, and she goes there to get him released into her custody -- a mistake it turns out. He is actually worse off with her, and vice-versa. On top of everything, Marian cannot break away from the depression she feels over a tragic incident that happened while she was in Latin America -- and anything she does is colored by that moment from the past. These burdens become almost too much to bear, both for Marian and the viewers.

In 2024, the iconic Rietveld Schröder House in Utrecht will celebrate its 100th anniversary. Gerrit Rietveld designed and built the house in close collaboration with his secret lover and creative partner Truus Schröder. Rietveld himself did not build his houses for eternity; he thought a life cycle of 50 years was sufficient. But the current owners of houses designed by Rietveld think differently about this. They pull out all the stops to renovate and preserve their Rietveld houses.

Show me your attic and I’ll tell you who you are! In this very personal and universal cinematographic essay, Digna Sinke travels to Zeeland and Bali, through faded photos to minimalist digital nomads. What to do with all those spare buttons? If you don’t keep anything, who will know what grandma’s tablecloth felt like?

When her relationship flounders, a young woman returns to the village where she was born, on an island in Zeeland. She had hoped that getting into a regular habit, having coffee and tea with her aunt, would bring her some peace – but pretty soon she’s had enough of the stultifying atmosphere. The village of Zonnemaire is no longer how she remembers it. Sinke shot this film in the village where she herself grew up. The unaffected acting and attention to detail with which the day-to-day activities of Rina's uncle and aunt are depicted give the film an almost documentary feel.

A personal search for the essence of keeping things at a time when the digital is superseding the material.