Lieke Bezemer’s short film ECHO touches on the directors own personal trauma which arose from her experience with Sexual Abuse. This film received an Honourable Mention for Best Mention Short at the 2021 Independent Shorts Awards, won the Best Cinematography Award at the 2021 Chicago Indie Film Awards and won the Best Shorts Competition Award at 2021 Best Shorts, winning three Awards of Merit Special Mention for Women Filmmakers, Experimental and Use of Film/Video for Social Change.

ECHO is the embodiment of the hidden world within a damaged mind. A cinematic essay that exposes the invisible processes of trauma – visualized solely by natural phenomena, set against the snowy backdrops of Hokkaido, North Japan. 

Director Lieke Bezemer has developed a strong focus on storytelling, research and concept development, predominantly focusing on non-fictional narratives after specializing as a director and also a cinematographer. Her photography background compliments her passion for nature documentaries as she combines these two skills to create art with an artistic background resulting in the urge to portrait hidden stories, whether or not nature-related, from unexpected angles. This includes experimenting with adding layering in the narrative.


Producer Elyse de Waard’s love for producing was born while she was studying to become an animator at the HKU (Utrecht). Elyse started to train as an animation producer which led to her producing several 3D and 2D animation shorts, one of which Huilbui by Sanna de Vries won the Wildcard at the Dutch Film Festival (NFF). De Waard finds it essential to work on projects with meaning, projects with impact which meant to help and/or motivate the audience to work towards change.


The beautiful cinematography was created by Nick Tucker and ECHO was edited by Erik van der Bijl.