By Bianca Peters, co-producer of the WOW! nature film
“You brought me back to my childhood and showed me once again that I need to look around me and appreciate how beautiful and extraordinary our nature is!”
“Guys, congratulations, it turned out fantastic, I’m completely blown away!! Great job!”
“WOW! I had no idea we had all of this on our islands, that so many people are working on such beautiful and special things, and that our nature is THIS beautiful!”
“How incredibly different Saba is from Curaçao! I thought Saba would look like our island. I really have to go there on vacation now that I’ve seen this!”
Last Thursday, something happened that we have been working and living towards for seven years. In the darkness of the cinema on Curaçao, The Six – the documentaries of WOW! – appeared on the big screen for the very first time: No longer just on our laptops. No longer in endless editing sessions, meetings, scripts, production schedules, and sleepless nights. But for real! In front of a room full of people. For the people about whom – and for whom – we are telling this story.
And honestly? I was so much more nervous than I expected. After working for seven years on a project that you once came up with on Eagle Beach, you become so deeply connected to it that it becomes an integral part of who you are, making it almost impossible to look at it objectively anymore. You know every scene, every silence, every wave, every drone shot, every sentence from the interviews. You know exactly what you want to say and which images belong with it. You also know how much love, doubt, frustration, hope, and perseverance it contains – not only from me, but from the incredible team I had the privilege to create this with. But what you don’t know is how it will resonate with others – until the lights go down and you watch those first images appear on that enormous screen together with everyone else in the room.
It was a tremendous honor and a goosebumps moment when the Governor of Curaçao officially opened the Curaçao documentary. I could feel my heart pounding when the first images appeared and once again found myself with tears in my eyes. This was the moment when WOW! was no longer only ours. It was shared with the audience. With people who saw themselves, their island, their nature, their struggles, and their pride reflected on that massive screen.
The reactions, like the ones at the beginning of this column, were even warmer, more emotional, and more positive than we had dared to hope beforehand. People stayed in the foyer talking afterwards. There was laughter, memories were shared, there were tears again, and above all, pride and wonder: Pride and wonder at the beauty of our islands. Pride in the stories of the people who dedicate themselves every day to protecting nature. Pride and wonder at something that often seems so ordinary until you see it through a different lens.
Last Thursday felt like the moment when a seed planted seven years ago finally broke through the soil. Vulnerable, exciting, and at the same time full of life and curiosity about what comes next. Not as the end of the work, but as the beginning of something that can now continue to grow and flourish. Because this was only the first premiere. In the coming weeks, the premieres on the other islands will follow. Five more moments in which we get to bring these stories back to the places where they were born.
And after that… starting July 7 at 9:20pm Dutch time / 3:20pm Caribbean time, the documentaries will be broadcast on NPO 2 – a thought that still feels a little unreal. Later this year, all documentaries will also be shown on the islands for everyone who wants to be moved by these stories and the beauty of our nature.
But last Thursday, sitting in the cinema at The Movies on Curaçao, what I felt most was gratitude. Gratitude for everyone who has believed in WOW! over the past seven years. For everyone who contributed (and there are so many people). For everyone who gave our story – and the story of nature – a chance… Masha, masha danki, all! Thank you all so much! So much gratitude to all of you!
