On the Westerschelde - Anne Van de putte

(in the framework of POEMS FROM THE SEA)

Original Dutch film title:
AAN DE WESTERSCHELDE
Year:
2005
Length:
10 minutes

Tagline:
Poetic film about desire based on a poem by Hans Warren.

Logline:
The film depicts the poem On The Westerschelde by Hans Warren: on a stroll along the Westerschelde estuary it relates loss, past and the desire for deliverance.

Poem:
On The Westerschelde

The frosty dyke runs on endlessly
in the mist. Invisible, throbbing
the ships glide past.
A no man’s land,
filled with a notion of time
And with a shape that approaches me
dark and spritely from a distance
through the white grass and the seaweed by the water.
He moves through me smiling
and takes me back to the past.
Not that much has changed,
now an echo of sound and a shadow
the scent of someone who has gone through me

Was this not the same in former times?
When I knew no one
I waited with this same feeling,
was that shape, that face
stamped in my desire
I smelt that scent, sweet and animal,
as I stood in the frozen mists of no man’s land
happy and blind with sorrow.

It is rather difficult
to say what this is, without pathos
without mysticism, quite common
the dearest one who approaches you,
and goes straight through you, and smells
and is not.

Hans Warren
translation: Martin Cleaver, Peter Verstegen

Cast:
with: Percy Bakker and Casper de Boer

Crew:
script & direction: Anne Van de putte
direction assistant: Hanneke Stark
camera: Paul Sixta
editing: Jan Ketelaars
effects: Dustin Kershaw
re-recording mix: Paul Gies / Klink
producer: Digna Sinke

this film is financially supported by:
Provincie Zeeland
VSB Fonds
ThuisKopie Fonds