level
cueva(no)

film

level (2026)

For the feature film Level by Carlos Mora Fuentes and Anna Berkhof I created the soundtrack.

It combines sounds recorded in the landscapes with sounds created on location using objects I encountered there. In this way, a unified soundtrack was composed from two very distinct places, each with its own sonic character.

About Level
Level is about landscapes. Landscapes that are irrevocably changing due to climate change. We have memories of landscapes that don’t exist anymore. We miss them. The different layers of the film are grounded by a universal narrative: the loss of a loved one leads to a period of introspection, but after a while there is more space for new things. Then a child is born and a new life begins.

Level is split into two parts: Usquert and Miera, corresponding to the two places where we lived over the last few years. One landscape in the north of the Netherlands: flat, empty and close to the sea dike. The other in the North of Spain, mountainous, isolated and rough. Two directors (Anna is Dutch, Carlos Spanish), two landscapes, two vital moments. Level is a story of opposites: life and death, new and old, Spanish and Dutch, tough and malleable. But Level is also a story of continuations: life goes on. From grief to new discoveries, to starting a family.

Cueva(no) (2022)

Cueva(no) is a sound and video piece made by Red Brut (Marijn Verbiesen) and Anna Berkhof. In the form of a videoclip they reflect on the concept of “the carrier bag theory of fiction” of Ursula K. Le Guin. In this essay Le Guin challenges the notion that the first man made tool was a knife, axe or similar object for fighting and killing. The first humans lived an 80% vegetable-based life, sustained by collecting things from nature. Only 20% was based on killing animals. Because of this Le Guin proposes that a carrier bag or basket is a much more likely first tool created by men. And if the stories about man’s interaction with nature would start from this point of departure, maybe the way we speak about nature would be very different.

Verbiesen and Berkhof take this concept to one of the many caves of the Miera Valley, Cantabria. Here prehistorical people lived, gathered, made art, rituals and music. They follow in their footsteps, and record their experience in the deep shade of Cueva la Puntilla. Sounds and sights that have not changed for centuries are combined with contemporary techniques and objects to form a musing on the deep darkness, the passing of time, and the relation with the landscape around.

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marijn verbiesen