DOCUMENTARY FEATURE FILM | 92’ | NEDERLAND |2020
DIRECTOR
Maartje Nevejan
SYNOPSIS
ARE YOU THERE? A poetic journey deep into inner space, regarding absence epilepsy.
Having had absences herself as a child, director Nevejan challenges the scientific paradigm that no consciousness exists during a seizure, by asking : If you are not there, where are you? Young people with absence seizures are linked with their own personal artist and together in co-creation they make and explore the worlds where they go to when they are gone. Could these holes in their lives turn into portals towards new knowledge?
In the film we encounter neurologists, cosmologists, artists-amongst them Anish Kapoor, wild wolves, black holes, and technological machines. What does our experience feel, taste, sound and smell like? How do these inner images occur? Are they real? A poetic quest at the cross point of Art and Science. The film is part of a much larger trans-mediaproject, containing exhibitions, Art en Science events, a book and an award-winning VR experience
PREMIERE
Spain
FESTIVALS
Best Documentary 2019 InScience International Film Festival
Best Documentary 2020 FilmBytheSea
Audience Award top10 FilmBytheSea
Best Interactive 2020 DutchDirectorsGuild
Best director Documentary summer 2020 TorontoCouchFestival
16th CPH:DOX (Official Selection, World Premiere. Copenhagen, Denmark)
48th Dutch Film Festival NFF (Official Selection. Utrecht, Netherlands)
4th CUZCO UNDERGROUND CINEMA FESTIVAL (Official Selection, Cuzco, Peru)
15th ParisScience Film Festival (Official Selection. Paris, France)
5th Inscience Film Festival (Official Selection. Nijmegen, Netherlands)
5th RAPIDLION – THE SOUTH AFRICAN FILM FESTIVAL (Official Selection, Johannesburg, South Africa)
55th INT’L SCIENCE DOCUMENTARY COMPETITION (Official Selection, Olomouc, Czech Republic)
14th VOX FEMINAE FESTIVAL (Official Selection, Zagreb, Croatia)
56th KRAKOW FILM FESTIVAL (Official Selection, Poland)
7th RPFF – RIGA PASAULES FILM FESTIVAL (Official Selection, Riga, Latvia)
MAARTJE NEVEJAN
Maartje Nevejan is an award winning and Emmy nominated, independent filmmaker, based in Amsterdam, with a background in theatre and multi media. In her projects she likes to research the (raw) poetic quality of reality.
Nevejan is also a change-maker and an innovative social entrepreneur. She often brings opposites together and capture these insightful, intimate and sometimes wild cooperations on film. She loves to hangout where “reality rhymes”. Highly interested in what moves people Nevejan’s films and projects are daring, funny, heartrending and very often changing the people who are in it. Her
films are not only screened on TV and in theaters but also used in many political conferences and at artistic and scientific summits all around the world.