On August 31, 1896, in Paramaribo, Affiba Maria Magdalena Dompig rode through the city in a horse-drawn carriage, surrounded by several generations of her family. The photograph of that moment, now housed at the Rijksmuseum, became—130 years later—the starting point for Affiba — The Eldest Woman of Paramaribo, the new documentary by Ida Does. Through this story, the Surinamese-Caribbean director continues her ongoing work: looking at archives in a new light and bringing lives that have long remained on the margins back into the spotlight. It is in this space between traces and memory that Ida Does works.
Affiba, a Face That Transcends Time
In the photograph, Affiba is looking at the camera. Standing beside her are two of her children, a granddaughter, and a great-granddaughter. The Rijksmuseum dates the scene to August 31, 1896, and notes that Affiba was considered the oldest woman in Paramaribo at the time. The photographer Théodore van Lelyveld had noted that she was 104 years old; upon her death a few months later, a colonial newspaper estimated that she had lived to at least 105.
More than a century after this photograph was taken, Joan Windzak sets out to uncover her family’s history. Her research leads her back to Affiba, her ancestor who was born into slavery and later gained her freedom. Ida Does decides to document this journey through film. For more than a year and a half, the director gathered archival material, filmed footage, traveled, and held conversations to create a film centered on this family history.
A filmmaker inspired by overlooked stories
Ida Does is a documentary filmmaker, producer, and writer. Her work explores colonial history, art, culture, social justice, and the life stories of Caribbean figures. What matters most to her is not just the subject she chooses, but the way she shifts the focus toward those whom dominant narratives have failed to hear.
In April 2026, in an interview with NPO Doc, she explained that in her films she seeks out people who can offer hope and work toward change. This commitment runs through a body of work that does not merely expose the wounds of the past. It also explores dignity, equality, and the possibility of passing on knowledge in new ways.
Museums Dedicated to the History of Suriname
In 2021, New Light — The Rijksmuseum and Slavery follows the preparation of the Rijksmuseum’s exhibition on slavery and the colonial past. The documentary will then be screened at the United Nations in 2023 and will receive awards at several film festivals. Through this work, Ida Does examines how a national institution can reexamine the histories it preserves and the way it presents them.
The following year, It Is Not Past — December 8, 1982 examines the murders that took place in Suriname in December 1982. The film draws on testimonies, archival footage, and works by artists. The subject matter is of personal significance to the director: she was living in Suriname at the time and knew Bram Behr, one of the victims.
In 2023, Everyday Dignity — Philomena Essed examines researcher Philomena Essed’s work on racism in the Netherlands. In 2026, *Een gevleugelde herinnering* in turn examines the Mauritshuis’s colonial past through the work of the Indigenous Brazilian artist Daiara Tukano. From one film to the next, Ida Does thus returns to the same question: Who is visible in history, and from whose perspective is that history told?
"Affiba": A Family Memory Brought to the Big Screen
With Affiba — The Eldest Woman of Paramaribo, this exploration centers on a single family. The film follows Joan Windzak as she traces her family history, using a 19th-century photograph as a bridge between several generations.
For Ida Does, the goal is clear: together with Joan, she aims to bring to light lives that have long remained outside the mainstream. The documentary therefore does not reduce Affiba to a mere historical figure. Instead, it places a woman, her descendants, and their collective memory at the center of a narrative where archival records and family tradition intertwine.
The film had its world premiere on June 28, 2026, at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam—the very place where Affiba’s photograph is housed. The image’s return to the museum lends the project a special significance: an archive once documented through a colonial lens becomes the starting point for a story reconstructed by a Caribbean descendant and filmmaker.
A Different Way to Look at the Archives
Ida Does’s work reminds us that archives never speak for themselves. They await eyes capable of questioning them, of uncovering the names, connections, and life stories behind an image. Affiba had already been photographed. She was, therefore, visible. Yet it took Joan Windzak’s research and Ida Does ’s film for her story to find a new place in the present.
And if this photograph was able to rekindle a memory more than a century later, how many other lives in Suriname and the Caribbean are still waiting, somewhere in an archive, for someone to finally decide to take a look at them?
Ida Does is a Surinamese-Caribbean documentary filmmaker, producer, and writer. Her work explores, among other things, colonial history, memory, culture, social justice, and Caribbean experiences.
Affiba — The Eldest Woman of Paramaribo follows Joan Windzak’s research into her ancestor Affiba, a woman born into slavery in Suriname. The film is based in part on a photograph taken in Paramaribo in 1896.
Ida Does uses documentary film and archival footage to explore how history is told. Her films bring to light people, memories, and stories that have long been marginalized.
