FILM: Stones Have Laws (Dee Sitonu a Weti)

Majestic images of the forest and the sometimes serene, sometimes raging river set the tone, while the local Surinamese Marroons that live there, descendants of enslaved Africans that managed to escape, illuminate their world. They show how they live there and how consulations with ancestors and forest spirits coexist with the use of modern tools. 

The film combines oral lore about African ancestral traditions and escape from slavery with new rituals, and shows how the industry that is razing the forest for large-scale logging and mining is endangering the community's strong ties to the land. Dutch artists Lonnie van Brummelen and Siebren de Haan, together with the Surinamese playwright Tolin Erwin Alexander, strongly involved the Marroon community in the development of the project, which emerged from an experimental process of collective scriptwriting and performance. The result is a unique cinematic form that mixes ancestral traditions with new forms of filmmaking, which meshes documentary, poetry and theatre. 

"A unique portait"**** De Volkskrant
"A story that we really should know"**** NRC

Watch the trailer.
A short documentary by STVS (Surinam) with public reaction after the premiere at TBL Cinemas, Paramaribo.

Direction: Lonnie van Brummelen, Siebren de Haan. Co-direction: Tolin Erwin Alexander.
Documentary, Netherlands/Surinam, 2018.
Languages: Saamaka, Okanisi, Dutch; with Dutch subtitles.