After The Tone

The premise of AFTER THE TONE is risky: the film is entirely made up of voice messages left for Onno, an architect who has gone missing and remains unseen. Nor does the film show the actors whose voices we hear. Such constraints could easily wear thin, but Digna Sinke skilfully uses them to explore the effect of Onno’s disappearance on his loved ones. Meanwhile, the screen is filled with long views of office buildings, residences, construction sites and waterways. There is nothing remarkable about these landscapes, until you realise that each is associated with a character. Adriaan, his business partner, frequently calls from a highway. Onno’s mother phones from a brick building, or rather the three birch trees in the yard outside a brick building—none of the shots are of interiors. Sinke’s camera always remains outside, as though to reproduce, in the viewer, the same distance the characters are desperately trying to bridge with their beloved Onno. In the guise of an existential drama about a man who vanishes, AFTER THE TONE offers a meditation on the gaps that occur in even our closest relationships. (Genevieve Yue)

In the presence of Digna Sinke and Gerwin Tamsma (Curator).

Digna Sinke (selection): GROETEN UIT ZONNEMAIRE (1972), DE STILLE OCEAAN (1984), BELLE VAN ZUYLEN (1993), Tiengemeten Project (2001–2006), WEEMOED EN WILDERNIS (2010), AFTER THE TONE (2014), UNDER THE SURFACE (2016), BEWAREN / KEEPING & SAVING (2018), ZOET & ZOUT (2019), GRENZEN (2020), HEMELSLEUTEL (2024)