For some it might be a little late but since January has been quite busy I simply haven’t had the time or ease of mind to get my plans in order for the coming year. And what a year it’s going to be! So let’s check out things and see what’s in the waiting…
First and foremost is a life changing experience that is hopefully going to happen. Moving to Nepal to work and film (again) but this time also to actually live there. Domestically speaking. If possible in Patan and Damak. My heart shouts ‘as soon as possible’ but my mind says ‘better get prepared properly’. So it will take time to get organized. Nevertheless the decision has been taken and whenever decisions like these have been made I can be certain that it will work out that way.
Main topic in 2012 is obviously the film ‘Headwind, The Forgotten Exiles from Bhutan‘. Directed by me, produced by Eveline van de Putte (www.evelinevandeputte.com) and made under supervision of White Stork Films, our little startup film production company (www.woordenstorm.nl/whitestorkfilms). We have been working woth a small but dedicated team on this film, the one and a half hour documentary, for almost one and a half year now. And the process of making this film has changed lives. Not for the makers but also for some people who got involved while shooting in Nepal. Dear friendships and even love have grown in a way that can only happen when people are honest and dedicated to their cause. The film is currently beging edited by me with co-direction from Eveline who has this amazing photographic eye and a storytellers heart. The combination of the two of us fiming, directing, scripting and editing is exciting. And it will not end with this film.
Next to the Headwind film are a host of products that we make. A novel, a photobook, a photo exhibition (actually two), a list of articles concerning the Bhutanese refugee issue and resettlement, all connected to the idea of empowering the Bhutanese refugees by acknowledging their situation and making that visible to the general public. Internationally. In the process we (as a team supported by the Empowerment Foundation) bring direct aid to specific groups of Bhutanese refugees in Nepal and advocate their cause on a number of levels including politics in the Netherlands and the Europen Parliament and concerned human rights organisations.
But we’re also making another photobook about elderly people living in the Himalayaregion and the first ideas for a new film after Headwind are taking shape.
And in February the theatre show ‘Vluchten kan nog wèl’ will kick off in Literary Theatre Branoul in The Hague. A show made by friends about what to do in this life now crisis has hit us all. I also hope to be able to write the sequel of my first published (Dutch language) novel while living in Nepal this coming summer. Because that’s where the story of the four main characters Kat, Beth, Jolanda and Sunil of ‘A latte, a cappu and an espresso’ will bring them to again. This time that sequel (Title ‘Two Chai Please’) will be in English by the way.
Which brings me to another thing.
More and more my mind is leaving Holland. Hopefully my body can follow soon. I noticed that at least a large chunk of my audience pie is international now. So I decided to some time ago to write more in English and slowly transform my blog in an English language blog with still a large part of it written in Dutch. That process will continue. I love my native language Dutch very much and especially poetry, songwriting and translating and short stories and columns will very frequently be written in Dutch. But the main language of this blog is English as of this year. To accomodate my international audience and to accomodate myself. Simply because I have realized that last year my first language was English and it seems that this year will end up pretty much the same.
Language is of course very important for me as a writer and for the first time in many years I am now seriously on learning a language that’s still rather new to me: Nepali. With a little help from my friends that is. How that will work out I don’t know because it really is difficult. But I’ll throw in the effort anyhow. Simply because love makes me do that.
So there it is for 2012, the upcoming work and life and at least the following list of creations:
- April: Headwind, The Forgotten Exiles from Bhutan. The feature length documentary.
- March: Headwind, Laxmi’s Story. The already finished novel, to be published soon.
- Fall: Headwind Resettled. Our 2012 photo exhibition.
- Spring: Unforgotten. The Photobook about life in the Bhutanese Refugee Camps in Nepal.
- Spring: Oude Hoogte. The photobook with Eveline’s photos of elderly in the Himalaya.
- Summer: Two Chai Please. The novel sequel to ‘A latte…’
- February: Vluchten kan nog wèl. The theatre show.
- All year: The New film. About what is still hidden in the minds of me and Eveline.
