A Well Respected Man, or Book of Echoes

Dutch film artist Wendelien van Oldenborgh believes, as Faulkner wrote, "The past is never dead. It's not even past." Her films, which mix scripted scenes with improvisational participation, investigate the Dutch colonial past in Indonesia. This publication features two of her recent films, No False Echoes (2008) and Instruction (2009), which present as photonovels traumatic episodes that still reverberate in the Netherlands. The book also includes a reprint of a 1913 essay of national freedom by Soewardi Soeryaningrat, Indonesian nationalist, and another text, from 1935, concerning national education in Indonesia. Oldenborgh's films are rich in the layering of cultural history and issues of memory and race.