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Delegations from Bonaire, St. Eustatius and Saba attended the presentation of the documentary “Mountains and Molehills” about Saba and Vaals in Limburg at the Ministry of Home Affairs and Kingdom Relations BZK in The Hague, on Monday.
When Saba became a Dutch public entity on October 10, 2010, the highest top in The Netherlands was no longer the 322-meter high Vaalserberg in Vaals, in the Southern province Limburg, but the 877-meter-high Mount Scenery in Saba.
Four students in The Netherlands, Evelyn Austin, Emilia Bergmark, Peter Sattler and Tommie Leisink, thought this would be an interesting subject for a documentary. They approached the BZK Ministry which helped them to organise funding. The Committee for Kingdom Relations, chaired by Pieter van Vollenhoven, made funding available for the film. The students convinced Austrian filmmaker Sandra Wollner to direct the film, and together with cameramen Thomas Loacker and Carl Schröder, they filmed several weeks on Saba and Vaals.
Filming for the one-hour documentary in Saba took place in August 2010, weeks before the new constitutional status went into effect. Several Saba residents talk of their island, their relationship with The Netherlands, life on Saba, Mount Scenery and the pending new constitutional status. The nowdeceased Carlton Riley tells of his meetings with Queen Beatrix. Residents of Vaals are also interviewed about the Vaalserberg, life in their town and in Limburg and the Dutch ways and practices.
The film was shot on a low budget and the crew worked for free, said Emilia Bergmark, who originates from Sweden. Mountains and Molehills was shown for the first time at the Kriterion Film house in Amsterdam in December 2011, followed by a presentation at the Rietveld Academy, also in Amsterdam, in March 2012. The premiere in Austria was in September 2012. The filmmakers would love to have the documentary shown in Saba in the near future.
Source: “The Daily Herald” 2012-10-09