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The island of Tiengemeten is getting a makeover. Originally tamed to serve as agricultural land, it’s now being left to the elements to revert back to wilderness. Filmmaker Digna Sinke documents 15 years of transformation. Using poetic diary entries and lens, frame, and height measurements, she records the loss of a landscape and the love of her life. Revisiting a series of fixed camera positions from 1996 onwards, she preserves long straight roads framed by poplar canopies as vanishing points on the horizon. On some visits it looks as if nothing has changed; the scenery appears static. But then in a blink, everything is unrecognizable - trees felled, barns razed. A chronicle of dramatic change presented as incremental shifts, Wistful Wilderness is a collection of final moments and firsts: the last potato harvest and families moving out, golden rod, willow herb, and warblers moving in. - Angie Driscoll

Co-presented with Dutch Treat Canada.

Media Coverage

NOW Magazine (4-star Review)