Moeder Dao de schildpadgelijkende (Mother Dao, the Turtlelike)

According to a legend of the inhabitants of the island Nias, which lies west of Sumatra, the earth was created by Mother Dao. She collected the dirt off her body and kneaded it on her knee into a ball. That was the world. Later she became pregnant, without a man, and gave birth to a girl and a boy. They were the first people. They lived in a fertile world. Vincent Monnikendam chose the Niassan story of creation as the starting point for his documentary, in which the viewer is led through the former Dutch East Indies as it was in the 1920's. More then 260,000 metres 35mm documentary nitrate filmmaterial from Dutch filmarchivs served as the source for this documentary.