Sine Loco

YEAR: In production
MEDIUM: Essay film, 15:00 mins
FUNDING: Stroom Den Haag, Amarte Fonds, Mondriaan Fonds

A small parrot skeleton is collapsed in a pile of bones. Slowly, the skeleton begins to breathe again, waking up from her deathly slumber. Multiple human hands offer the skeleton a small cardigan - she must be cold with no feathers! “Thank you!” she replies in a high-pitched squawk.

Sine Loco is my attempt to conjure up a disappeared bird - the extinct Paradise Parrot. The film traces the life of one individual from her birthplace in a termite mound in Australia to her death in the Hague Zoo in 1890 and beyond into her afterlife today as a skeletal museum specimen. An afterlife where she is Sine Loco - without place.

Through poetic ruminations on life and death, the ghost of the parrot addresses the filmmaker and humanity directly. That is, with the help of a real life parrot ‘actor’ employed as a voiceover narrator in an attempt to channel her message.

Sine Loco is currently in production with an estimated completion date of July 2026. Feel free to get in touch for more information.

Credits (to be completed)

Written and directed by: Georgie Brinkman.

Director of photography: Alex Wight.

Puppeteer: Pluck Venema.

Ventriloquist: Lydia Zwart.

Sound design: Alex Wight.

Supported by: Stroom Den Haag project grant, Amarte Fonds project grant and Mondriaan Fonds development grant.

Developed during: TRACTS essay film workshop, Porto University.

Mentoring from: Manon Bovenkerk, Bo Wang and Lucia Pietroiusti.