Still: My Word Against Mine - Maasja Ooms

Brigitte hears three voices, René hears several, of whom Henk is most prominent. Rens is continually accompanied in his head by Jeroen, while the fragile Tamira is host to two voices. Jamie, meanwhile, hears nineteen.

In Maasja Ooms’ My Word Against Mine**, world-premiering in IDFA Luminous, we get to know all five protagonists over the course of nearly two hours. We also get to hear some of the voices within their heads, but through the protagonists’ mouths, courtesy of the questioning undertaken by psychiatrist Dirk Corstens and a team of therapists.

The film is a fascinating watch, at times disturbing as the voices speak, sometimes with malevolence. The voice named Hypno that occupies Brigitte’s head was at first a support, after she was sexually abused at the age of 12. But it later became a stern and constant critic of its host, and has continually tried to tip Brigitte towards suicide.

Tamira is terrified of the dominant voice in her head, and her whole demeanour changes when she is asked to be the instrument for it. But when psychiatrist Corstens teaches Tamira how to keep the voice at bay, the change in her countenance is palpable.

Oddly, when René’s voices begin to be less voluble after he takes a holiday, he says he misses them, and is curious to know how he can make contact again. 

The film’s mise-en-scène is crisp and ordered, and the camera is fixed, although there are zooms, visual and sound effects, and a dynamic soundtrack courtesy of Thijs van Vuure who worked with director Ooms throughout the entire production. And now and then we see the protagonists away from the psychiatrist’s chair, in their homes or, in the case of Jamie, visiting a gallery and creating music.

Director Maasja Ooms tells SEE NL that her interest in the subject stems from a fascination she has always had for the human mind and madness, and also of fear.

“It's commonly known that people's greatest fear is death, and number two is the fear of madness. I recognized that fear in myself,” she tells SEE NL. 

When she consulted Dutch psychiatrist Jim van Os on the subject, he told her about the voice-hearers movement - people trying to free themselves from the diagnosis of schizophrenia. “Jim himself says that schizophrenia doesn't exist, that it hasn't been proven at all,” she comments. “I found that so complicated and fascinating. He actually set me on that path [towards its study]. I then started reading and researching a lot about hearing voices, and it immediately gripped me.”

The experience of watching the protagonists articulating the voices in their heads can be very disturbing. Whether it be a simple twitch, or an altered manner in addressing the questioner that we are assessing, the shift is uncanny. Did director Ooms experience any such sense of unease?

“The process wasn't nerve-wracking at all,” she responds. “I really took the time for it, and it was very thorough and calm research – getting to know people, taking a year to go from one step to the next. Of course it was sometimes exciting to witness personal processes up close, to feel and experience the tension of people going through these processes. But that was also educational. I could offer support and be a listening ear where needed…It was actually a calm process of depicting people's internal processes.”

What was deeply upsetting for Ooms was the death of one of the participants through suicide. “That was terrible,” she says. “That person had taken sleeping pills. It was terribly sad, but then you also see that it [the voice] had been in that person's life for so long – that you hope people are helped in time, that you might be able to prevent a whole lifetime of terror in the head. That wasn't so much nerve-wracking, but terrible. The powerlessness was exhausting.”

The subject is ripe for impact treatment, whether directly by the film team or among the film’s own participants. “The beautiful thing is that the people in the film have a mission themselves,” says Ooms. “They're also active in an impact campaign and they're going to speak out. And there's also a whole voice hearers movement that wants to free itself, so we're going to connect with that and ride along. During the cinema release there will be all kinds of gatherings.”

Producer Cerutti adds: "The impact campaign aims to transform how both mental health professionals and the broader public understand and respond to voice hearing. For professionals within mental healthcare, the goal is to shift away from immediate medicalization toward a more humanized, listening-based approach - encouraging clinicians to pause, sit down with patients and their families, and ask, 'How is it for you to work with this person? What moves you? What do you find difficult?' Rather than defaulting to medication and diagnoses.”

“For families and the general public, the campaign seeks to break the stigma by normalizing voice hearing as a human experience that affects ten percent of the population, helping loved ones understand that voices are not automatically a sign of illness, but often meaningful responses to trauma and stress that deserve to be heard rather than silenced,” Cerutti adds.

“By fostering dialogue between these two groups and centering the voices of those with lived experience, the campaign aspires to prevent isolation and instead create space for connection, understanding, and genuine recovery.”

My Word Against Mine is produced by Cerutti Film and is part of IDFA Luminous. Find out more about the Dutch selections at IDFA here.

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*film supported by the Netherlands Film Fund
**supported by the Netherlands Film Fund and Netherlands Production Incentive