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What links 14 radio telescopes, the former Dutch East Indies, and Holland’s World War II Nazi Camp Westerbork? In this film by Monique Verhoeckx we make a journey through time, departing from the observatory at Treasure Mountain, once the location of the notorious transit camp where the filmmaker’s mother found temporary shelter in the huts in 1950, after surviving two wars in Indonesia. In that year the place was still in its old state: barbed wire, huts, guard towers and a gate. Only the name had changed.
By the use of new media techniques historic 35 mm film material from the colonial era and wartime appear like a fata morgana in the Dutch landscape today. A bus trip to Treasure Mountain takes the mother and two Indo-European families back to a mood of ambivalent memories. Featuring the telescopes on the deserted camp grounds as metaphorical time machines we travel with the filmmaker on her quest for long-gone events in space and time, based on the story of her mother - and what she hasn’t told.
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TREASURE MOUNTAIN / DE SCHATTENBERG
A film by Monique Verhoeckx

Credits:

script and direction: Monique Verhoeckx
camera: Gregor Meerman
sound and sound editing: Erik Langhout
montage: Barbara Hin
visual effects Rino Janssen CIRIS
music John van Buren
producer: Fransjoris de Graaf, Studio Mekaniek
Music performed by: Marcel Fisser – guitar
Luca Genta - cello
John van Buren - piano, clarinet
Music technology Joris Borm
Light: Stan Schram and René Veen
Colour correction: Ronald van Dieren / CIRIS
Production: Fransjoris de Graaf and Marijke Brinkhof

Historic film material: Dutch Filmmuseum, Dutch Institute of WO II Documentation, Institute of Image and Sound the Netherlands, Dutch Royal Institute for the Tropics

Visualisation Light Echo:NASA/JPG-Caltech
Data Visualisations of radio astronomy: Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy, Max Planck Society Garching – Springer et al. (Virgo Consortium), Astron department Radio Observatory Westerbork
Astronomer: R.C. Vermeulen

English translation: Martin Cleaver, MC Translations
Subtitles: Holland Subtitling


Lab: Cineco
Scanning: CIRIS, AVP
KODAK


Financially supported by ‘Het Gebaar’ Foundation.

16:9 80’

© 2006 Studio Mekaniek / Monique Verhoeckx

Phone: +31 6 23356722
E: thermicthoughts@hotmail.com

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BIOGRAPHY

Monique Verhoeckx
filmmaker, visual artist

After graduating in Communication Science at the University of Amsterdam, Dutch filmmaker and visual artist Monique Verhoeckx worked as director of short television documentaries on the interaction between people from different cultures. In her recent works she combines new media with film, moreover investigating the interplay between art and science. This has been expressed in, for instance, multimedia projects with scientists, composers and performing musicians. ‘Treasure Mountain’ is her first feature documentary film and in this the filmmaker uses her various approaches in order to explore some aspects of her Asian European background.