Nina de Vroome

While dancing, bees tell each other stories about the world around them. People also claim a role in those stories, sometimes very close and intimate, sometimes distant and on an industrial scale. Nina de Vroome's thoughts also swarm with the bees: from the smallest cell in a honeycomb to the global economy, her essayistic nature documentary Globes charts the bond between humans and bees. As accomplished storytellers, they both give shape to their lives under the sun.

While dancing, bees tell each other stories about the world around them. People also claim a role in those stories, sometimes very close and intimate, sometimes distant and on an industrial scale. Nina de Vroome's thoughts also swarm with the bees: from the smallest cell in a honeycomb to the global economy, her essayistic nature documentary Globes charts the bond between humans and bees. As accomplished storytellers, they both give shape to their lives under the sun.

In this short film, several dogs are being trained as patrol dogs. Their owners teach them the choreographies of police work: biting and letting go, following and staying, always on their owner's command. Longingly gazing upwards, the dogs seem intimately connected with their owners. They are tamed and domesticated; their life is directed by humans. At the same time they are always the elusive other. A gap divides humans and animals, and from the other side these dogs see us.

A majestic mountain range rises over a Norwegian town engulfed in darkness. The stormy sea laps at its shores. A thick snow is falling. The town’s inhabitants, almost motionless in their existence, are like creatures in hibernation. The camera’s static shots resembling photographs are woven together into an experimental documentary on life in Skaland.

A majestic mountain range rises over a Norwegian town engulfed in darkness. The stormy sea laps at its shores. A thick snow is falling. The town’s inhabitants, almost motionless in their existence, are like creatures in hibernation. The camera’s static shots resembling photographs are woven together into an experimental documentary on life in Skaland.

"The premise of this video is an exercise in improvisational filming. I asked the film-students of the Sapientia University of Cluj-Napoca to walk on their own in a small village called Szèk for one day and make a video in which they weave their observations into a cinematographic thread. I did the same." (Nina de Vroome)

A Sea Change takes its audience to the IBIS maritime boarding school in Ostende (Belgium). In buildings that look out towards the sea, boys from six to sixteen sleep, eat and play. They learn how to read the sea, sail with a fishing boat and help haul in the catch. In the classrooms, the impetuous sea is captured in maps. On sea maps, there are no storms and there is no time: the sea might seem timeless, but much is changing. The coast is permeated with nostalgia, as if the sea had turned its face to the past. Sooner or later the fishing fleet will disappear, together with many endangered species of fish. The fish auction hall in Ostende is in decay, the harbour coated in rust. Nonetheless, a new colour is appearing from beneath the peeling paint.