Bagasi – what we carry

When director Emma Lesuis’s father-in-law hands her a suitcase that belonged to his late grandfather, Maarten de Niet, an unsettling family history is about to unfold. The suitcase contains an archive of photographs, political documents, newspaper articles and a double-faced doll: white on one side, black on the other.

From 1926 to 1953, De Niet was Attorney General and Acting Governor of Suriname. As such, he was involved in the arrest of anticolonialist author Anton de Kom, and the long-term imprisonment of trade union leader Louis Doedel. During this same period, Emma’s own Surinamese grandparents lived under De Niet’s government. Their worlds touched, but were effectively separated by power and skin colour.

Emma has Surinamese roots on her mother’s side, an origin that was rarely referred to during her childhood. At a time when the debate about colonial legacies grows ever more urgent, she decides to open the archive. As a film maker of Surinamese origin, what does it mean to investigate the colonial past of your in-laws?