At van Praag (1940-1986) was a political filmmaker and freelance correspondent/cameraperson for Dutch public broadcasting. He was the initiator of Cineclub Vrijheidsfilms (1966-1986), an activist film collective that functioned as a producer, distributor, and exhibitor of political and subversive films. Photo Credit: At van Praag and Bram Behr (Cineclub Vrijheidsfilms Netherlands & Suriname)
Nadia Tilon (1953) is a social pedagogue, journalist, actor and singer. Shortly after starting her studies, she started acting for the Loson-theater and continued this with its successor, Toneelgroep Makandra. Until the early 1990s, Nadia regularly performed at demonstrations, actions, manifestations and street festivals. She is also involved in the film Women of Suriname (1978), both in the making of the original film and in the current re-release. The many questions about the soundtrack led Nadia to make a podcast series, Surinamese Action Songs of the Seventies.
Luna Hupperetz (1996) is a film curator and PhD researcher at the University of Amsterdam, with a focus on critical audiovisual heritage. She is interested in activist documentary cinema, practices of audiovisual re-use and collaborative film archival methodologies. As a film curator, she has been involved in researching the recently restored Women of Suriname (1978). In light of this restoration, she co-directed and produced the short film A Battle Restored (2022). Currently she is researching the residual materials related to the unfinished trilogy Unknown Suriname (Cineclub Vrijheidsfilms, 1973-1978). Photo by Jeremy.
Oema Foe Sranan (Women of Suriname) portrays the lives of four women, who relate the history of Dutch (neo)colonialism in Suriname and racism and being disenfranchised in the Netherlands using personal stories. The film was produced by Cineclub Vrijheidsfilms in cooperation with LOSON (the Dutch national organisation for Surinamese people), in the framework of political struggle, as a sign of solidarity between Surinamese and Dutch people, who transfer a collective message about the socio-political situation in Suriname and the Surinamese community in the 1970s. The film centers on the hope for a better future, and liberation from foreign influence.
A Q+A with Nadia Tilon and Luna Hupperetz will follow the screening.
Women of Suriname screens at THFF25 with the film Sweet Sugar Rage (1985) as part of the retrospective program You Don’t Get Freedom, You Take Freedom: Caribbean Activist Cinema 1978–1985.
This screening is supported by
Dutch Culture USA at the Consulate General of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
Miami Workers Center
