Genre
Synopsis
Throughout WW2, teenage Dutch resistance workers utilized the Nazis’ underestimation of the power and intellect of women to extract intel and enact sabotage in the name of justice. VERENA + JO is based on these actual historical events, but the story has been expanded and fictionalized to express a story of queer love in a time and place where this love was subject to harsh punishment. As a transformative relationship grows between Verena and Jo, Verena also explores new layers of gender expression.
VERENA + JO is a WW2 period drama on an intimate scale. In the last months of the war, characters are dreaming of their potential futures after they help rid Holland of fascism. Verena and Jo hope they are risking their lives to help create a more equitable world, where they can experience acknowledgement and acceptance of their love after the war ends.
Bio
Talena Sanders is a filmmaker, artist, & educator who makes moving image works that explore women’s experiences, identity, and history through an expansive sense of the possibilities of the documentary form. Her work has been screened, exhibited, and collected internationally, including at FID Marseille, RIDM, Viennale, DokuFest Kosovo, BFI London Film Festival, and First Look at Museum of the Moving Image. Her first feature documentary, Liahona, is distributed by Documentary Educational Resources and won the CAMIRA jury prize at Play-Doc Tui. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Communication and Media Studies and the director of the undergraduate Film Studies program at Sonoma State University.
Awards History
Stowe Story Lab Film Fatales Fellowship 2024 - Honorable Mention
B3 HessenLab at B3 Biennial of the Moving Image 2022 - Selection
Film London's UPStream Pitch 2023
Credits
Producer - Stewart MacKinnon
