Ilja Saris is werkzaam als psychiater bij TOPGGZ polikliniek angst- en dwangstoornissen in Amsterdam. Ze combineert patiëntzorg met wetenschappelijk onderzoek en is in 2021 gepromoveerd op verstoord sociaal gedrag. Haar interessegebied strekt zich uit van innovatieve behandelmogelijkheden tot het beter begrijpen van verschillende neuropsychiatrische ziektebeelden.

Floortje Scheepers, (kinder- en jeugd)psychiater, werkzaam als afdelingshoofd en hoogleraar psychiatrie in het UMC Utrecht, Wetenschappelijk directeur van kenniscentrum Phrenos. Dat zich richt op mensen met ernstige psychische problemen, voorzitter kwaliteitsraad van het Zorginstituut en raadslid bij de raad voor volksgezondheid en samenleving (RVS). Opleiding gedaan in Utrecht, daarna aantal jaren bij het Radboud gewerkt in Nijmegen en sinds eind 2010 weer in het UMC Utrecht

Suzanne Spliethoff is een Nederlandse presentatrice en actrice. Ze staat bekend voor het Tv-programma Life is Beautiful (RTL4) en als verslaggever van 112 Vandaag (RTL5). Ook presenteert ze al 11 jaar lang een wekelijks live kinderprogramma bij Emma TV, het interne tv-station van het Emma Kinderziekenhuis/AMC.
Naast haar theateropleiding heeft Suzanne de studie Biomedische Wetenschappen afgerond, waardoor ze een veelgevraagde dagvoorzitter en presentator is voor ziekenhuizen, farmaceuten en zorgverzekeraars.

Fashion brand Maxivive is a Lagos-based activist organization founded in 2007 by creative director Papa Oyeyemi. Bringing together the brand’s design about non-conformity with tailoring, Maxivive is recognized for its innovation through design. Oyeyemi’s work has been exhibited at the Royal Pavilion and Museums, Brighton (UK) and the Tropenmuseum, Amsterdam (Netherlands) and featured on various international media platforms, including Vogue, GQ, CNN, and BBC.

During the fourth edition of the Freethinker Festival, De Balie, together with international guests, looks at Amsterdam as Queer Capital of the World(?). What developments are specific to Amsterdam, and what is part of an international climate? With writers, fashion designers, filmmakers and politicians, we will discuss struggle, emancipation, and the importance of a sanctuary.

Als onderdeel van Vrijdenkers festival werkt De Balie samen met het onafhankelijke modelabel Maxivive ‘een grensverleggend mannenmodelabel dat de gendernormen in Nigeria opschudt’, zoals Vogue het verwoordt. Als onderdeel van de samenwerking bekijken we de film Pink Lounge. Geregisseerd door de Nigeriaanse filmmaker Sheifunmi Yusuf en mede geschreven door de oprichter van Maxivive, Papa Oyeyemi.

De film speelt zich af in Nigeria, een jaar voordat de Same-Sex Prohibition Act werd aangenomen, waardoor verbintenissen en activiteiten tussen mensen van hetzelfde geslacht strafbaar werden. Veel scènes in de film zijn geïnspireerd op ware gebeurtenissen en laten zien hoe er vóór 2014 veilige ruimten werden gecreëerd voor individuen die als onconventioneel, queer of kunstzinnig werden beschouwd.

Pink Lounge is een document dat, zoals Maxivive het zegt, ‘een thuis is voor levendige en felle unrulies die alle kansen trotseren ondanks dat hun vrijheid op het spel staat’. De nadruk wordt gelegd op het concept van de housecultuur. Een term die in West-Afrika is gegroeid als gevolg van gevonden ruimtes en queer jongeren op zoek naar onderdak, troost en vrijheid.

Na de vertoning spreken we met modeontwerper Papa Oyeyemi over zijn film en zijn werk als modeontwerper.

Over Maxivive

Modemerk Maxivive is een activistische organisatie uit Lagos die in 2007 werd opgericht door creatief directeur Papa Oyeyemi. Door de vormgeving van het merk over non-conformiteit met het maken van kleding samen te brengen, wordt Maxivive erkend vanwege zijn innovatie door middel van design. Oyeyemi’s werk is tentoongesteld in het Royal Pavilion and Museums, Brighton (VK) en het Tropenmuseum, Amsterdam (Nederland) en te zien geweest op verschillende internationale mediaplatforms, waaronder Vogue, GQ, CNN en BBC.

Vrijdenkersfestival is onderdeel van Amsterdam 750 jaar. Op 27 oktober 2025 bestaat Amsterdam 750 jaar en in aanloop van deze mijlpaal worden diverse programma’s, waaronder Vrijdenkersfestival, georganiseerd om dit te vieren. 

This year the Amsterdam Polish Film Festival, organised by Polish Culture NL in collaboration with De Balie, focuses on the history and current developments in Central Europe, through films dealing with gruesome communist history and conversations shedding light on the impact of the Ukrainian war on the local population.

This year the Amsterdam Polish Film Festival, organised by Polish Culture NL in collaboration with De Balie, focuses on the history and current developments in Central Europe, through films dealing with gruesome communist history and conversations shedding light on the impact of the Ukrainian war on the local population.

This year the Amsterdam Polish Film Festival, organised by Polish Culture NL in collaboration with De Balie, focuses on the history and current developments in Central Europe, through films dealing with gruesome communist history and conversations shedding light on the impact of the Ukrainian war on the local population.

Elwira Niewiera – director of The Hamlet Syndrome. Elwira is a Polish/German director and screenwriter based in Berlin. In her artistic work, she focuses primarily on social and cultural transformations in Eastern Europe.

Maryna Er Gorbach – director of Klondike. Maryna is a Ukrainian filmmaker who writes, directs, produces, and edits films, often with her husband, Turkish filmmaker Mehmet Bahadir Er. She was among a group of Ukrainian filmmakers who called for international aid for Ukraine in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine

Anna Greszta – Cultural anthropologist and PhD candidate at the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis (ASCA), UvA. She currently works in the ERC-funded Conspiratorial Memory project, focusing on cultural representations of the Russian war in Ukraine. Inspired by and immersed in cultural analysis and anthropological traditions, the project explores the intersections of memory and conspiracy cultures in the landscape of objects representing war. Her previous research experience ranges from investigating Polish-Jewish relations and the memory of the Holocaust. Anna is co-founder of the Amsterdam volunteer group Collect4Ukraine.

Fadoua Alaoui – moderator and presenter. Worked as anchor of the daily morning show on the Dutch Caribbean channel “Nos Pais Television”. She had a wide range of clients in recent years, including the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO), the Municipality of Amsterdam, the Municipality of The Hague, FNV, World Cinema Amsterdam and Cinekid.

This year the Amsterdam Polish Film Festival, organised by Polish Culture NL in collaboration with De Balie, focuses on the history and current developments in Central Europe, through films dealing with gruesome communist history and conversations shedding light on the impact of the Ukrainian war on the local population.

Barbara Malak-Minkiewicz – Polish researcher in social sciences and philosophy from the University of Warsaw. She focused her professional interest on the transformation processes in Central-Eastern European countries. Barbara was the spokesperson for Solidarność, the first independent trade union in a Warsaw Pact country to be recognized by the state, founded in August 1980 in Gdańsk, Poland. Solidarity’s leader Lech Wałęsa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983 and the union played a central role in the end of Communist rule in Poland. For her work for freedom in Poland, she was awarded the Officer’s Cross of Polonia Restituta by the Polish President in 2013.

Matt Steinglass – Europe correspondent of The Economist. Previously he wrote for the Boston Globe and a variety of other publications in West Africa and then in Vietnam. Before becoming a journalist, he spent several years as a website producer for startup companies and as a screenwriter of animated television shows for Disney and Nickelodeon. He studied Russian history and literature at Harvard and interactive telecommunications at New York University.

Anne-Lise Bobeldijk – Postdoctoral researcher at Wageningen University and Research, where she participates in the NWA Heritages of Hunger project. Her current research project focuses on the (political) use and abuse of history and famine legacies in the Soviet Union, Ukraine and Russia. In her PhD research at the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies and the University of Amsterdam, she analyzed the history and memories of violence before, during and after the Holocaust and World War II in Belarus.

Kateryna Kobchenko – Historian from Kyiv, Ukraine. She studied history at the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv (NTSU), where she also defended her dissertation and worked for a number of years – in the Centre of Ukrainian Studies on the Faculty of Philosophy. In 2020-2021 Kateryna Kobchenko was a member of the Project of Digital Interview-Collection “Forced Labour 1939-1945. Memory and History“ at the Freie Universität Berlin. K. Kobchenko is a member of the Austrian-Ukrainian Historical Commission and of the International Advisory Board of the Topography of Terror Foundation, Berlin.

Fadoua Alaoui – moderator and presenter. Worked as anchor of the daily morning show on the Dutch Caribbean channel “Nos Pais Television”. She had a wide range of clients in recent years, including the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO), the Municipality of Amsterdam, the Municipality of The Hague, FNV, World Cinema Amsterdam and Cinekid.