Catalogue > Un extrait vidéo au hasard

Amanda Van Hesteren

I Want to go Higher

Documentaire | hdcam | couleur | 23:15 | Pays-Bas | 2022

In this sensitive portrait four male models make a sincere attempt to get to know themselves better during a retreat in Thailand. While the most sensitive boy, Arjan, actively talks about the patterns he wants to break and spends a lot of time in bed, the most dominant boy in the group, Jamal, likes to be the center of attention. Among themselves, the boys behave over the top; riding naked on a scooter, renting exaggerated villas and doing photo shoots for Instagram, while you keep feeling something chafe inside. In private conversations with filmmaker Amanda van Hesteren, we learn more about their individual insecurities as the boys' vulnerabilities unfold in different ways. When you change from boy to man: where do you leave your story and how do you explore with your friends what you can and cannot tell them?

Amanda van Hesteren (1991) graduated Cum Laude from her Audiovisual Arts program at LUCA School of Arts in Brussels with a semester at the School of Visual Arts in New York in 2019. Her first two short films were about her vacation lovers in Thailand and Jamaica and have been regularly screened at various art festivals in the Netherlands and Belgium. Her graduation film Mommy and me: yes but no/no but yes (2019) was co-produced by Dutch Broadcaster VPRO. In 2019 she had a solo exhibition at gallery ALMA SARIF in Brussels, and is currently preparing her second, which will take place at the Kunstverein in Cologne in March 2024. In 2021 she participated the IDFA Project Space where she developed a new script for her first feature documentary which she is currently making with production company Halal and Dutch public broadcaster VPRO as well as a documentary serie. Amanda's style is edgy, intimate and transparent. With her disarming gaze, she creates honest films in which she and her protagonists learn new things about the psyche of humanity and themselves.