The Empire project

The people of Holanda

Behold! The second teaser for Empire: Migrants.

This time we take you to the village of Holanda, Brazil, where cousins married cousins for generations.

Presenting Empire at the Arquivo Publico

Empire: Migrants is on a tight production schedule: we’re setting up quick shoots in Brazil, Suriname, and Ghana, and won’t have time to edit our footage until this summer. 

Luckily, the Public Archive of Espirito Santo took us in for a presentation about our work anyway. We struggled our way through an hour long explanation of Empire while showing video stills and video clips, as you can see in the photos.

Special thanks to Thiago Moulin for being our translator that evening! Photos: Carla Caliman.

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Empire presentation announcement 

According to Google translate it says:

“Dutch roots

An American filmmaker and filmed the Dutch town of Holland, in Santa Leopoldina for a documentary that seeks the roots of Dutch colonization in the world. The video will be presented on Monday, the 17h, the State Public File.”

Close enough.

The Young Girls of Holanda, Brazil

…are our new favorite people. Behold 9 video stills from the latest film in the “Empire” series. 

This new film tells the story of Holanda, an isolated community in rural Brazil. Established by a handful of Dutch immigrants in the mid 1800’s, Holanda has endured into the 21st century through a combination of rugged determination and flagrant inbreeding.

Holanda’s girls are the community’s pride and joy. Most don’t work the land like the rest of their families. Instead, they stay inside and study, or pass long hours painting their nails and watching television.

Their leisure comes at a price. Expectations are high for the latest generation of Holanda’s women. For the first time in the town’s history, parents are hoping to see their children receive university acceptance letters and pursue careers in the city. They are being nudged out of the nest, and encouraged to find a life outside of Holanda.

Principal photography in Brazil wrapped on March 24th, 2012. 

Next stop: Suriname.

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Clog dancers in Holanda, Brazil

We paid a visit to some local kids who are preparing a Dutch clog dance for us for next Saturday. If this is an indication of how the dance will turn out, we’re happy.

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First day of shooting

Yum.

Welcome to the jungle

We’ve spent the last three days scouting for our latest film Empire: 10º00’ S, 55º00’ W here in Holanda, Brazil.

Click through the photos for a glimpse of the places we’ve seen and the people we’ve met.

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Espirito Santo, Brazil

In the mid-nineteenth century, after the abolition of the foreign slave trade, a newly independent Brazil was facing a population problem. The freshly-minted country was enormous and fertile, and yet almost no one wanted to move from the coasts to cultivate the interior. Enter waves of colonists from Europe, including a handful from the economic fringes of the Dutch provence of Zeeland.

Lured by the promise of prosperity, a few hundred of these Dutch migrants arrived in the state of Espirito Santo between 1858 and 1862. They carved out a place for themselves in the mountains, a Protestant enclave far from the coastal Catholics. They worked the land as best they could, and were rewarded by visits from snakes and malaria.

The settlers named their colony “Holanda” and we’ll be hanging out there for the next three weeks.

Stay tuned.