Jan 26, 2024 · Megan Hoetger
From the Stage Lights to the Sand · Filming day five
The final full day of filming was spread across two locations. The first half of the day was spent in the CREA Theater at the University of Amsterdam where a group of around fifteen cast and crew members gathered to film a haunting white mask scene in the stage’s tribune seating, eerily enacting Frantz Fanon’s landmark 1952 publication Black Skin, White Masks as director Emma-Lee Amponsah reminded us on set. As the nude scene, this was also the moment of peak vulnerability for the main character and for the actress playing her. Here, the care work of intimacy coach Alexine Gabriela, as well as – once again – acting coach Roxana Verwey, were crucial to maintaining a comfort on set. The white mask scene was a reminder of the boundaries of consent that can sometimes become blurry, even in spaces amongst community members and with kindred spirits.
In the narration for this scene, written later by poet Mathieu Charles during the film’s post-production process (when all sound was added), we hear the voice of narrator Burnice Hiwat asking:
– Am I unbearable?
– Is my baggage too heavy?
– Am I too visible?
– Am I invisible?
In the narration for this scene, written later by poet Mathieu Charles during the film’s post-production process (when all sound was added), we hear the voice of narrator Burnice Hiwat asking:
– Am I unbearable?
– Is my baggage too heavy?
– Am I too visible?
– Am I invisible?
In the second half of the day, nine cast and crew made a small road trip to the beach together with the door that accompanied the film’s main character throughout the scenes. Here the door became a portal to the expanse of the North Atlantic and the ancestral oceans of elsewheres and other times. “Beyond the shore of my sleep to the heart of your ocean,” the narrator’s (Hiwat’s) voice later speaks it.