By Jeffrey de Graaff, co-producer of WOW!
During a research trip to Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao, Saba, Sint Eustatius, and Sint Maarten for “WOW! Caribbean Nature Uncovered”, I looked out over landscapes I wasn’t prepared for.
“WOW!” will be a cinema film about the nature of the six Caribbean islands within our Kingdom. Each island amazes you in its own way through its unique environment, yet they all share the same challenges due to climate change. I knew what I was going to encounter, but the difference between knowing and seeing is greater than you might think.
And that is exactly what we at MN Media focus on. We make the unseen visible. Sometimes, that’s a world beneath the water; sometimes, a story that normally doesn’t get a stage; sometimes, nature you’ve passed thousands of times without truly seeing it. With WOW!, it is all three at once.
I am Jeffrey de Graaff, co-founder of MN Media. We distribute and produce films and documentaries. We make films with depth that reach a wide audience: “The New Wilderness” – about the Oostvaardersplassen; “The Wild North Sea” – about life above and below the surface of the North Sea; “Under the Surface” – about the invisible world beneath our feet. These films won Golden Calf awards and drew hundreds of thousands of visitors to cinemas.
The visitor numbers are great, and I’m not going to pretend they don’t matter. But what drives me is what comes after. The conversation that starts when people have seen something they hadn’t seen before – not because you tell them it’s important, but because they feel it themselves. Wonder is a more powerful tool than any message.
With “WOW!”, we turn that lens toward the Caribbean part of the Kingdom: Six islands with a natural richness that most people in the Netherlands – and I suspect many island residents as well – do not fully know. The highest point in the Kingdom is not the Vaalserberg in South Limburg, but Mount Scenery on Saba. In the Netherlands, we have dune forests, peat bogs, and polder landscapes; on the islands, there are rainforests and desert terrains. Impressive coral reefs that are quietly dying while life above continues as usual. Mangrove forests that protect coastlines without anyone realizing or thinking about it. Species that exist nowhere else on Earth.
We are making a film that takes you into the beauty of what exists. Spectacular visuals, an overwhelming soundtrack, and the stories of people on the islands who work every day to protect and restore that nature. No celebrities coming in to explain how things are, but island residents who actually do the work – people with their hands in the soil, their feet in the water, and their minds focused on the future: That, to me, is the power of film.
You make something visible, and then a conversation often begins. Film is a tool for that. With “The Wild North Sea”, we noticed that people looked at the sea differently after the film – not because we told them to, but because they experienced it themselves. With “Under the Surface”, we received responses from people who suddenly realized what lives beneath their gardens.
The challenges facing the Caribbean part of the Kingdom are significant. Everyone who lives there knows that better than I do. But the conversation about it – between the islands themselves, between the Caribbean and European parts of the Kingdom – can be better. Our film can play a role in that.
We have now started production of the film, together with director Selwyn de Wind and the film crew. The research trips are complete, the storylines are in place, and the first images are breathtaking. I can’t wait to show what we are capturing – because once you see it, you can’t unsee it.
