Douwe Dijkstra

How can you understand a violent past? Somali-born Abdi is furniture designer and support worker. He reenacts his life, marked by war and criminality, with the help of his neighbor and filmmaker Douwe. By means of playful reconstructions in a special effects studio, Abdi and Douwe embark on a candid and investigative journey through a painful history, focusing on the creative process throughout.

In Démontable, our domestic space turns into a world reminiscent of Gulliver’s Travels, invaded by miniature projections of the outside world. “A funny, playful film on the absurd relationship between daily life and global news. The level of media saturation we’re bombarded with creates an absurd distortion and distance between our daily routine and current affairs. Démontable explores this bizarre melange of realities by throwing the two worlds together: attack helicopters shred a newspaper, while a dinner plate suffers a drone strike. They’re a series of attempts to try and understand our world better by playing with its violent protagonists

In a multi screen collage of visual experiments a longing for tribal habits is explored. Rituals We Wish We Had is a film about being homesick for a place you have never been.