Martijn Blekendaal surprised the world of young audience documentaries with original films such as THE MAN WHO LOOKED BEYOND THE HORIZON with his original perspective on the position of children and documentaries. That made expectations extra high for his new film. THE INVISIBLE ONES premiered at IDFA and once again… surprised everyone.
Martijn Blekendaal’s new film is a tribute to kids who need to be invisible because otherwise their lives are in danger. In THE INVISIBLE ONES he tells the stories of four children – some of whom are now 85 years old – who learned to master the art of going unnoticed. Among them is a woman who stayed silent as a mouse during the war (but no longer) and a man who surrounds himself with hundreds of coloured lights and plastic flowers since the darkness of his time spent in hiding. And there’s a boy who would like to tell his story, but has to stay invisible. And yet he appears… somehow…
This is the starting point for an exploration of the ways in which attempts have been made to portray the invisible in the history of film, photography and television. The Invisible Ones thus becomes a playful media experiment, an attempt to create a superhero and a tribute to the superpowers in ordinary people.
After the controversy caused by Blekendaal’s plea that documentaries for children should not always start from young main characters, he now makes the understandable choice not to feature kids in his film. Instead, he has adults (who, of course, were once kids themselves) tell their remarkable stories of resilience and survival. They don’t think of themselves as heroic, but they have the qualities that any superhero should have, and an ability to remain out of sight.
“My reason for making THE INVISIBLE ONES is a personal one,” Blekendaal said in an interview for IDFA. “I’m adopted, and I grew up in a white environment where I always stood out. I wanted to be invisible. Later, I realised that this desire is a ‘luxury problem’ compared to children who are forced to be invisible because they’re in hiding, being abused, or smuggled across borders.”
Read here the interview, published by See NL.