my word against mine

Maasja Ooms website and #linktree/Mijnwoordtegenhetmijne
Directors statement

The human mind fascinates me endlessly. The head that houses everything: emotions, thoughts, willpower, creativity, consciousness, dreams, trauma, inner criticism. Sometimes also voices that sound out loud.

Usually we have control over our inner life, but very often we don’t at all. You can’t sleep because of repeating thoughts or re-experiences that keep imposing themselves. Emotions become too overwhelming. That inner critic tears you down to the core. Or that voice whispers that you’re not worthy of this life.

Are you sick if you hear things others don’t hear?

I dove into the subject and discovered that more and more psychiatrists are questioning traditional diagnoses. “In every physical symptom, there is a piece of personal history,” says German psychiatrist Franz Ruppert. Scottish psychiatrist Ronald David Laing went even further: “Insanity is a perfectly rational adjustment to an insane world.” What mainstream psychiatry views as illness would, according to him, be an understandable response to a dysfunctional society.

Dutch psychiatrist Jim van Os is even more explicit: “If we were honest, we psychiatrists would take off our white coats; there is little to nothing proven in mental health science. Schizophrenia doesn’t exist.” He advocates for humanizing psychiatry, returning to the human story. “The ordinary person on the street understands this, but today’s psychiatrist has completely lost sight of it.”

People who hear voices often feel deeply misunderstood. If you tell a doctor you hear voices, you risk ending up in a closed ward with a handful of pills. Medication that doesn’t silence the voices, but merely reduces the fear somewhat. The side effect: complete indifference. Unbearable for most.

During my research, I met people who told me what echoes inside their heads.

Punishing voices. Hostile voices. Crying children. A man who stood with a drill to his head to make a hole, hoping the voices could escape. A boy who had cut off his finger on the voices’ orders. A woman whose voices drowned out everything, so she could no longer hear what others were saying to her. A loved one couldn’t enter her life; the voices would completely take over.

Hearing voices means in most cases: losing control over your inner world. Feeling that you’re no longer in charge of that voice. Are you going crazy then? You’re careful not to tell others. Voices that sound out loud…  people will think that’s insane.

But why, actually?

Why do we stigmatize people who hear voices like this? Should you be ashamed when something inside you increasingly wants to take control, wants to control you or even threaten you? Are you truly crazy when something stirs within you that you can’t do anything about?

Who is that voice, actually? What does it want and what does it say? Could that voice – if taken seriously – perhaps have something to tell you? Something that helps you understand why it’s there? Would the voice be willing to reveal that?

Then I came into contact with psychiatrist Dirk Corstens.

For thirty years he has been working with voice hearers, and during his sessions he actually engages in conversation with the voices themselves. A fascinating methodology in which he searches for the possible secret the voice harbors. This can be transformative for the voice hearer.

I was allowed to follow this process closely and make a film about it, with the permission of the people involved. They too had a mission: to prove they’re not crazy, and thus break free from a terrible isolation.

The intensive conversations and the intriguing manifestation of the voices gave me an insight of great significance: voices want the right to exist and have a reason for existing.

I saw with my own eyes how the powerful words of Franz Ruppert gained meaning:

“Truth heals delusion.” 

Interview with Cinesud Sofia Piven

Filmography and earlier work online available (in Dutch).
Jason (Cerutti Film, VPRO, 90’)
Best Dutch Film Award IDFA 2021
Jury Award Best Consience Documentary Docville 2022
Best Cinematography award Doker, Moscow 2022
The Audience Award, Doker Moscow 2022

Punks (Cerutti Film, VPRO, 90’)
Best Cinematography IDFA 2019
Best Editing IDFA 2019
Special Mention Dutch Documentary IDFA 2019
Dutch Directors Guild Award 2020
Nomination Feature Length Documentary NFF 2020

Alicia (Cerutti Film, VPRO, 90’)
Prix Italia 2018
Special Jury Award for Dutch Documentary IDFA 2017
Best Film Gdañsk Film Festival 2018
Jury Award Cinema Verite Iran 2018
Nomination Feature Length Documentary  NFF 2018
Hartenhuis Impactaward 2018

Between People (Cerutti Film, VPRO, 50’ -2016)

credits My Word Against Mine
script, research, cinematography and director Maasja Ooms
edited by Sander Vos
composer Thijs van Vuure
sound Rik Meier and Maasja Ooms
sounddesign Michel Schöpping and Tim van Peppen
line producer Margreet Ploegmakers
production assistant Madée Hofenk
additional research Monique Lesterhuis
postproduction Loods, Ruud de Bruyn
commissioning editor  Barbara Truyen (VPRO)
producer Willemijn Cerutti for Cerutti Film (NL)

This film was supported by The Netherlands Film Fund, The Netherlands Film Production Incentive,  NPO fund and Het Cultuurfonds Stipendium.
A Cerutti Film production in co-production with VPRO.

Main characters
Dirk Corstens – psychiatrist
Brigitte, Tamira, Jamie, René, Rens