The Clearing

In the early 20th century, a Javanese girl is lured to Sumatra with false promises of a better life on a Dutch colonial rubber plantation. Upon arrival, she soon understands she is trapped in a terror of “white suits.” As primordial rainforest is cleared to make way for monotonous rows of rubber trees, Dutch colonialists rule over migrant workers like slave owners. The sexual exploitation of women workers was an open secret, masked by euphemism and carefully designed propaganda.

Following the trail of her own great-grandmother Helena, who was never talked about in her family, as well as a female character who was cut from the Dutch film Rubber (1936), director Sabine Groenewegen unravels the stories of a great number of women whose lived experience was systematically erased from the record. Her meditative forensic investigation navigates between ghosts and established narratives, archival footage and newly shot material, historical records and truths hidden in fiction. Through a feminist and anti-colonial lens, she contrasts what was spoken and recorded with what was systematically concealed.