Funhouse Fransje
My graduation film and collection are based on escape room research and my own childhood memories. I did a lot of research on escape rooms because they seem to be good for team building, something that we could learn from within my own family. After this research I decided to write my thesis about a game that I’ve designed for my family so we could reshape family memories to work on our relationship and communication in the future.
The film that I made is based on my thesis and I take you with me as a viewer back to my childhood dollhouse. In this dollhouse I try to escape the tiny walls by outgrowing the space and using props that relate to my upbringing. I seek for growth In this escape room to become big enough to be seen by my own family.
I was the game master in my thesis to help my family escape the imaginary walls of miscommunication, but in my film there is only one character who could help me escape, my childhood doll, Fransje.
Fransje was one of my only “friends” when I grew up and I got him from my mom because I was too small to join the activities that my older brothers and sisters could do. Therefore, my collection is based on his appearance, and this is also the reason why he got crowned as the game master in my film. He will never grow big enough to be seen and because of that he became a big inspiration in my work and in life. He excepted his own faith of being too small to fit in and that’s what I can learn from him in this search of escaping these family structures.
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Fleur van HeezikDirectorJonathan Sipkema
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An SmidDirector
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Fleur van HeezikWriter
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Fleur van HeezikProducer
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Fleur van HeezikKey Cast"Fransje"
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Project Type:Experimental, Short
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Runtime:8 minutes
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Completion Date:June 30, 2023
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Production Budget:3,000 EUR
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Country of Origin:Netherlands
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Country of Filming:Netherlands
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Language:Dutch, English
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Shooting Format:Digital
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Aspect Ratio:16:9
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Film Color:Color
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First-time Filmmaker:Yes
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Student Project:Yes - Gerrit rietveld academy
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Graduation show gerrit rietveld academyAmsterdam
Netherlands
August 5, 2023
I take you with me in my work on a journey to my own constructed world, in which a cocoon of absurdism, nostalgia, and manic madness unfolds into a cinematic spectacle. This bizarre fever dream transports you back into my childhood that is filled with forgotten 1970s vintage and children’s television shows.
This self-made reality converges into my projects which are a combination of film and fashion. I take the leading role in my work and act like an introspective magnifying glass, to magnify the issue of being too small to fit in with my surroundings and especially, my family. I take the full control of this feeling and transform it into the growth I need to be seen.
I describe my work as a simulation of a typical Dutch forced family party where I don’t really belong in. I use this uncomfortable and awkward setting as my main inspiration to rewrite narratives from the past and to explore the position that I have within my own family and in life. It’s a form of therapy to dissect the core of the family structures beneath the layers of the Jordanese Amsterdam humor and to reshape these according to my own vision on life.