Stones Have Laws (2019)

Stones Have Laws is an immersive initiation into the life of a Maroon community in the former Dutch colony of Suriname. Combining stories of African ancestral traditions and escaped slavery with enacted contemporary rituals, the film explores how the community's powerful ties to the land have become endangered as industries threaten to devastate the region through deforestation and mining. Dutch artists Lonnie van Brummelen and Siebren de Haan and Surinamese theatre maker Tolin Alexander closely involved the community in the development of the project, which was made using an experimental process of collective scripting. The result is a unique cinematic form that bridges filmmaking, poetry and theatre.