UNMASKED: Protest-film-fest. On February 7, filmmaker Festus Toll and artist Sophie Straat will present three films and a video work. Tra Fasi - Charity Charly, This Home Is Ours - Shayma' Awawdeh, Asiel - Tina Farifteh, A Sod State - Eoghan Ryan.
Sophie: "In Charity Charly's film Tra Fasi, Shavero says: “Just having fun with the boys, we need an outlet.” Isn't that exactly why music and film exist? For the simple pleasure.
Both Tra Fasi and This Home Is Ours are essentially about creating something: wanting to “just” exist and wanting to do something. But through oppression or stepping outside the norm, doing that automatically becomes a form of resistance.
Tina Farifteh's video work, Asiel (Asylum), on the other hand, is pure resistance, both from B (the anonymous asylum seeker) and from Tina, the creator.
In A Sod State, Eoghan Ryan's film, this protest is explored in a fictional way: how can real stories about oppression, resistance, protest, campaigning and reality be told through art?"
video work: Asiel
Tina Farifteh | Netherlands | 2025 | 17' | English spoken | English subtitles
Iranian-Dutch photographer, filmmaker and artist Tina Farifteh powerfully depicts the subject of asylum. She does so through the story of B., a man who, after more than four months in immigration detention at Schiphol Airport and a stay at the Ter Apel asylum seekers' centre, is now in the asylum process. B. recounts what it is like to stay at these locations. Farifteh wonders how it is possible that a system that was once set up to protect people in need has become a system that can cause such harm to people.
From 1 November to 11 January, Asiel was on display as a video installation at the Rijksmuseum. This evening, this video work will be shown elsewhere for the first time – at Rialto De Pijp.
This Home is Ours
Shayma’ Awawdeh | Palestine | 2025 | 22’ | Arabic spoken | Engels subtitles
The camera explores the attempt to create a film with Aisha, a Palestinian girl who uses a camera to document her daily life in Hebron, a city divided by apartheid where various forms of daily oppression persist. Aisha captures powerful and personal footage depicting her and her family's resilience under the siege they endure within the city, carrying it with her wherever she goes around the world.
Tra Fasi
Charity Charly | Netherlands | 2026 | 20’ | Dutch, Sranan Tongo, English spoken | English subtitles
Charity Charly’s directorial debut is a portrait of and tribute to Surinamese icon-in-the-making Shavero Ferrier. Growing up in an environment with all kinds of stigmas around punk and rock music, he kickstarted a community and ultimately built the alternative scene he’d longed for himself. Powered by the soundtrack of current and former bands Mutha Flac, Luguber and De Rotte Appels, expression and release burst from the screen. Punkers tot de dood!
A Sod State
Eoghan Ryan | Netherlands | 2020 | 22’ | English spoken | no subtitles
A Sod State posits pre and post-Brexit 'Troubles' in Northern Ireland as repetitive political theatre, in which an inner demon performs binary contradictions of class, faith, identities, and borders; private, public, and political.
Sophie Straat graduated from the Royal Academy of Art in 2020, where she studied documentary photography. In her graduation year, she collaborated with producer Wieger Hoo-gendorp on the EP 'T is niet mijn schuld, for which she received an Edison Award later that year. This was followed by her debut album Smartlap is niet dood, a nod to the slogan Punk's not dead, in which she explores the boundaries of the concept of punk. Sophie has impressed audiences at festivals such as Best Kept Secret, ITGWO, Lowlands, and Pukkelpop (BE). In addition to her music practice, Sophie Straat is a multidisciplinary artist: she takes photographs, makes films, creates artworks, and writes essays. Sophie Straat is here to share something, and together with her audience, that becomes reality.
