Stones Have Laws
Trailer [ov st en]
by Lonnie van Brummelen, Siebren de Haan
Combining African knowledge with indigenous skills, Suriname’s Maroons developed a way of life in which non-human persons such as stones an rivers co-govern. Village elders but also young men and women explicate how they live with the forest. They demonstrate the procedures to consult ancestors, gods and forest spirits. But the film also tells another tale, one of ongoing exploitation and struggle. In the time slavery, the Maroons battled fiercely against the Dutch colonial rule. In current days, their offspring is confronted with multinational firms who capitalize on the natural resources on their ancestral grounds.