Tosca Schift
Born 1995, Enschede, The Netherlands

Education:
(currently) 2023 - 2025 Master of Film, Netherlands Film Academy, Amsterdam (NL)
2014 - 2019 Bachelor Product Design, ArtEZ, Arnhem (NL)
2019 - Rewarded with the Certificate of Excellence by the external committee

Artistic practice:
2019 - 2024 Part of collective ANT EYE - www.anteye.land
based in Arnhem (NL) from 2019-2023
based in Amsterdam (NL) 2024 onward


Tosca Schift is a Dutch visual artist whose practice spans video art, film, performance and the (de)construction of objects. Her product design background nurtured an interest in the relation between humans and objects and sparked a moral concern with conditions of possession and an awareness of what it means to be material. Across her work, dissonance of the body and the human relationship with the (im)material world take a central role. Here, she blurs the boundaries between the real and the imagined as a gateway to a realm that speaks to the bodily perception.Since 2019, Schift has been closely collaborating with Hanneke Klaver as the artist duo ANT EYE. Together they screened and exhibited their work on a variety of international platforms such as: Istanbul Experimental Film Festival, Lehmbruck Museum, Fashionclash Festival, Go Short International Short Film Festival Nijmegen and The Grey Space in the Middle. Also, Schift has been rewarded with the Stimuleringsfonds Talent Development Grant in 2022.

About                   Semester 3                 Semester 2                    contact.    





Scroll on the left side and click on the images
for more information + film stills 












NAVIGATION
This island is made during the first workshop of the semester. It’s a paper sketch and overview of the research. For me, it works as a tool to navigate through the different places that I deal with. It brings together layers of history and helps me connect specific stories, memories and events to the different research areas.










A film on life and death, the process of becoming and a family history.











Introduction
Title: “It’s too cold for the spirits to live here”                      
  •      The title is a phrase from my father Dave Leonard Schift. On the 16th of October 1958, he fled with the family from Indonesia to The Netherlands.  They traveled for a month with the ship the M.S. Sibajak. When they arrived in The Netherlands it was getting winter. Coming from the tropics it was a shock. He noticed that the spirits he lived with in Indonesia were gone. They had left him on his journey. Being an eight-year-old, he and his siblings figured it was too cold in this place for the spirits to survive.
I can see the coldness of this country in several ways, on different levels. In my research I began to put more focus on displacement, a sense of belonging and the dissonance with one’s own body.


Log 1:
Something got stuck in the genes. 
In the new generation. I can feel the force, the anger and violence in me.



Three stories, three childrenI ended the second semester with three family stories from three generations. The stories are based on memories and family history and take place in the moment the protagonists were children:

  • 1900 - The stolen son of the Sultan
    - Muhammed Ali Raden Nurpiah
    - later renamed Joseph Charles Schift
    My great grandfather was adopted by a family with the name Schiff. He was the son of a Sultan in Palembang, Indonesia. He was given to a Dutch family, so he would receive a European education. The agreement was that he would be with this adoption family temporary, but he was never given back to his real family. His daughter, my great aunt, has described his life in her memoirs. She says he was never truly happy after the loss of his family. The adoption mother is described as mean, controlling and overpowering.

  • 1958 - The journey with the M.S. Sibajak
    - Benjamin Glenn Schift
    My uncle is schizophrenic and has multiple personalities. He’s being medicalised and assessed as having a mental disease. At the same time, having voices in his mind could mean he’s channeling something that we cannot see for ourselves. It can be a gift or a curse. He went with the ship to The Netherlands. From an Indonesian perspective, it can be interpreted that his own spirit was taken along the journey. And the voices in his head are spirits talking through him.
  • 2002 - The boy who’s a girl who likes girls
    - Tosca Mechelina Schift
    When she was a child she discovered that she’s attracted to girls. She had short hair. People often mistook her for a boy and called her Oscar instead of Tosca. Only the schizophrenic uncle saw the girl that she was. He came daily to the family home and stares at her. She sees that he sees her. 
    When the girl is seven she climbs a swing and while pulling herself up she discovers the sensation of an orgasm for the first time. She recognises the type of excitement her uncle feels when he’s looking at her. She  starts to compare herself with him. She knows she likes girls and he also likes girls. She’s disgusted of herself and beliefs that she has an illness like her uncle. A coincidental connection between the two is made.


Three become oneAt the end of the second semester, my goal was to bring the three stories together as one whole. If I want to make new connections to a broader shared communal history and the family epigenetics, I needed to let go of the linear separated timeline of the stories. I needed to find a way to connect in a broader context.

Log 2:
The research is speaking to me and all I have to do is to carefully listen.








Filming in Indonesia

This summer I went to Indonesia for the first time. I brought two camera’s and traveled by myself. I had some things on my list that I needed to do, but mostly I would listen to the people that I met along the way. I would follow their advice in where to go next. This open exploration gave me a lot of new material that I have to process. Not only have I got new footage, but also it gave me a lot of profound experiences that connect deeply to my prior film proposal. My subjectivity kept a firm hold on me, so to speak. 


I have a couple of experiences that I want to bring into the narrative in some shape or form:

  • Being perceived as male
    I was often being seen and treated as a man by the people in Jakarta and Jogja. I didn’t expect that. It’s quite striking that the Indonesians see my energy as a man. This visual confusion is very interesting since I was perceived as a boy when I was a child by Dutch people. The body as a subject of interpretation in relation to the social context is something I want to work with.

  • Connecting with the spirit world
    I went to swim in the sea at full moon. Indonesians said to me that the ancestors and spirits will come to me. I only have to listen. While swimming I moved to lay on my back. Then a big bed of plants got stuck under me and I started to drift off into the sea. In this darkness, this open space, I experienced passing through some kind of portal. It scared me, but I had full trust in the force that was taking me. The current changed and brought me back. After this experience I learned to see the signals and presence of the spirit world within this world. I began to see another layer of reality that’s invisible to outsiders. I became more receptive.

  • Being adopted by an Indonesian family
    Coincidentally I got adopted by an Indonesian family. The reverse process happened from what my great grandfather experienced. I met a man  who invited me to come to his family. He said he considered me his daughter and I got three Indonesian brothers with it. He said he felt lighter, because I was there. I felt humbled, deeply touched and at the same time in the beginning it felt suffocating. I decided to fully surrender and accept to the conditions. I truly started to feel home in a short time. This family is emotionally intense which I also recognise in myself. Generally speaking The Dutch don’t have that in this way.

  • Life and death of Toraja
    I ended up in Toraja. Everything there is about life and death and the ancestors. They have a local religion named: Aluk To Dolo (the way of the ancestors). I learned a lot on death as not a direct end of a life, but as a slow transition towards an afterlife. What’s in The Netherlands considered a dead body is in Toraja considered a sick body. The bodies are kept in houses to save for a funeral with a sacrifice of Buffalo’s, etc. This region has a layer of spirituality which is very strong and present. You can literally smell it.


In short, I found the warmth, the spirits, the ancestors and a deep connection with the people that I was looking for. The research also became exponentially more complex in its connections to the world after this journey. Which is a good thing, but it makes it more challenging for me to shape the narrative.
Log 3:
I said I knew what I was doing, but how can I know? When I never did this before.

Log 4:
The body knows, the hands know. They are moving, acting. My consciousness can only watch and follow.










Log 5:
I never realised that capturing footage is such a big responsibility that comes with expectations from both sides. I cannot please either of them.

























Log 6:
This footage is given to me by the people. They trust me.

Log 7:
I’m a coward.
I cannot find the courage to speak with my Indonesian adoption family.
What am I afraid of?




















Log 8:
I don’t like my footage.
It’s a burden.
It doesn’t belong to me.
It’s bigger than me.
And I’m too small.







“I’m too wild for a woman. Even here.”







Further elaboration

As a child with a Dutch mother and Indo father I grew up in a mixed culture. In my research and project I’m searching for a position that I can speak from. I noticed that I like to blur the boundaries between opposites. And I try to oppose elements with one another. I think a lot of things exist within contradictions or a certain ambiguity. 

  • While searching I ended up in a space that’s...
  •       Between life and death
    Between dreams and reality
    Between the conscious and the unconscious
    Between stillness and movement
    Fighting some kind of madness
    Fighting some kind of prejudice
    Between coldness and warmth
    Between soil and cement  
    Between violence and peace
    Between Holland and Indonesia
    Between worldviews
    With an open body
    Always in between 
    A process of becoming
    Being born over and over again 
    The continuity of life

MetamorphosesIn my research, I’m actively exploring the fluidity of my own identity and bodily form. The concept of metamorphosis - both of the body and of the self - can be a crucial theme in the development of the film. It represents a potential answer to the internal dissonance of a body; a release from the heavy colonial heritage. Not becoming one or the other, but becoming as a contant, neverending process.



EmbodimentI look for ways to create an embodied experience within the project. I try to make the knowledge tangible through senses and atmosphere to channel certain emotions that come with the research. Like the insecurity and fears of being lost, searching in the dark, looking for the unknown, the fear of rejection, a desire to be truly seen and accepted, the reconciliation when roots are found back, the pain of knowing the sacrifices that past generations had to make, etc.

Also, the editing process itself becomes an act of embodiment. It’s not merely technical, but performative - a mental and emotional state in which I align myself with the material I’m working with. I need to feel what I see and listen to what the footages are trying to tell me. Only then I shape a narrative that resonates on a more visceral level.



Erratic journeyThe film will unfold as an erratic journey, traversing multiple worlds and layers of reality that coexist simultaneously. I want to break free from linear storytelling, moving fluidly between the past, present, and future. I think this nonlinear approach can be essential for capturing the complexity of “betweenness”—the transformative, shifting state between identities, times, and spaces. It mirrors the way life itself unfolds, connecting disparate experiences in ways that cannot always be rationally understood. Through this approach, I hope to make the footage breathe, become alive in some sense.



  • Position and goal
I feel like I need to be unethical. Not to pursue immorality, but as an exploration of what is deemed “unethical or innapropriate” in the eyes of the other-minded. I want to embrace the madness that’s often associated with schizophrenia, I want to embrace the violence that lives within me and to embody the paradox that exists within my identity. 

To speak from this betweenness, I must defy ‘Dutch’ values and expectations by offering a different kind of knowledge and perspective. But this perspective will neither be Indonesian. I cannot place one identity above the other. They must coexist as equals. Also, they are not oppositional, but rather intertwined. Of course, my education is rooted in Dutch culture, so my knowledge is far more grounded in one side. However, my position is fluid and cannot be limited to one singular framework.

Simultaneously, I believe in the presence of spirits and the multidimensionality of life. Through the film, I hope to reconnect with and express this expansive view of existence. And to see whether it’s indeed too cold for the spirits to live here.


Log 9:
I’m out of control. It’s beyond my own capacity. I’m riding the waves of the ancestors.






























Log 10:
I’m avoiding to say what really happened. How can people belief me? I have to find a way to tell without telling.  
Log 11:
The more I know, the less I want to say. The knowledge becomes mine, internal.










































Log 12:
I can’t deny. This research is making me racist. Should I be? I have to be. I am. Maybe I should accept it.

Log 13:
I’m an oppressor in sheep’s clothing.

Log 14:
I’m like Pinocchio. My Belanda nose is too long for the Indonesians. I cannot hide the fact that I’m an imposter. 







Experiments - evidences

2024-09-16
Workshop 1
- Riccardo Arena

In the first workshop the goal was to bring the research into the space.I made a paper island in which I was able to make new connections. I used a rope to let certain protagonists travel through the spaces and layers within the island.







2024-09-25
Studio presentation
- Katarina Zdjelar, Diana Toucedo, Eliane Esther Bots, Nduka Mntambo


On the landing day, I presented my journey by starting with a search in the dark with a petroleum light. The second part of the presentation I did a live editing. I was telling my journey by choosing excerpts in that moment depending on where my story was heading towards.







2024-10-29
Workshop 2
- Kumjana Novakova, Diana Toucedo

For the second workshop I made an edit in combination with a performance. I brought two plants into the space and while the sound started I cut the plants to make a tool of the wood. The second day I I invited people to sit together to share my doubts and hesitations in how to continue my process.







2024-11-13
Workshop 3
- Eliane Esther Bots, Diana Toucedo

Iteration 1: I was looking for opposites within the natural and the manmade. Also, I was looking for something that becomes rhythmic over time. I still have to find the right music.

Iteration 2: I filmed my uncle again recently. I’m searching for ways to bring him into the narrative.





How will the lone body finds its way through the concrete structures and the paved roads made of garbage concealed with a thick layer of black tar?





Looking ahead

To do list
     Project:
  • Main goal: edit edit and edit,
  • Write text, keep digging deeper into specific elements to find more in-depth insights and perspectives
  • Look at the books that I’ve been reading, I think there might be interesting insights that can inspire the text for the film
  • Make groups of elements that can work together.
  • Make chapters or not. Experiment with transitions.
  • Collect archive footage from the Eye study
  • Collect archive footage from Beeld en Geluid
  • Collect archive footage from Arsip Nasional Indonesia
  • Film Rotterdam harbour
  • Film Amsterdam concrete infrastructures
  • Keep filming uncle
  • Digitalise the negatives that Jean Schift made during the journey with the ship in 1958

     Collaboration:
  • Ask music artists: Kretek Beats duo (based in Den Haag/Rotterdam) to collaborate for a music piece
  • Ask Diana Asti from Main Kata for Bahasa course, translation and pronunciation in the film.
  • Ask ‘adoptive brother’ Wayan Bima to collaborate for a text in Bahasa. He has a beautiful low voice. Maybe he would like to do some voice-over.
  • Find someone who can do the colorgrading.
  • Find someone who can help me with the tuning of the sounds into 5.1.


Outcome
  • Research presentation:
    Publication of a book, between A5 and A4 size, 100 to 150 copies, binding sections with pop-out pages.

  • Project presentation:
    It will be a film, ranging from 30 minutes to feature length; inspired by personal experiences and family history in connection with a colonial past. It will be an erratic journey through several spaces and times. The protagonists and course of events are guided by the spirits which are ultimately the ancestors; leading them through an emotional and historical landscape that reflects both personal and collective legacies.



Log 15:
I’m exhausted.
Give me a break.
I need to feel.

Log 16:
I’m getting lost in the process.
The force is leaving me.
What’s it all for?


Log 17:
I’m so overwhelmed by my own capacity to work with film. It frightens me. When will I fall? When will I be exposed for the fraud that I am.

I’m not the same as I was before.

I realise that I need to change the way that I see myself.