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Maroesja Perizonius

Writer & Director

Maroesja is a documentary director with a background in journalism and copywriting, and so works across the board. She has also worked as a documentary researcher, fundraiser, assistant-producer, producer and non-fiction writer.

Please scroll down for portfolio.

© MélusineDesign
The Guardian
 
CHILDREN OF THE CULT (2024)
 
 
 
 
 
In October 2024, Maroesja’s new feature length documentary CHILDREN OF THE CULT premièred in UK and Ireland cinema’s, after which it was aired on ITV Exposure on the 13th of October.
 
CHILDREN OF THE CULT is a personal investigation into the Rajneesh/Osho movement. One of the world’s biggest and most successful cults, it had communes in more than 30 countries in the 1970s and 1980s and was portrayed in the 2018 Netflix series WILD WILD COUNTRY. Filmmaker Maroesja, herself a child of the communes, travells around the world connecting and interviewing other former commune children, and reveals a shocking truth about the children that has long been concealed, and that WILD WILD COUNTRY failed to tell. Until today, no one has yet been called to account for the harm caused to the children. In the course of her investigation, Maroesja unmasks perpetrators and pursues answers from the closest members of the cults inner circle.
 
This film, produced by the London based, award winning documentary production company DM Productions, was three years in the making together with consultant producer and writer Lily Dunn. Dunn’s father was a follower of the same cult, about whom she wrote the devastating memoir SINS OF MY FATHER: A daughter, A cult, A wild unravelling.
 
Directing on Maroesja’s side is Alice McShane, known for her work on the award winning documentary on Russell Brand: In Plain Sight.
 
Production: David Modell, DM Productions
Distribution: MagnetFilm
 
The Sun
The Times
Time Out
Morning Star
Film Review Daily
BFI (British Film Institute)
City AM
The Times
 
 
 
Trouw
 
 
 

CHILD OF THE COMMUNE (2004)

Maroesja wrote and directed CHILD OF THE COMMUNE, a personal documentary about her childhood in the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh/OSHO cult (Lemming Film/NCRV Dokument/YLE) in which she speaks with her mother about being cult followers and the impact of this on a child. CHILD OF THE COMMUNE premiered at IDFA in 2004. The film was broadcast in twelve European countries and on Arte.

Awards:

• Best Debut (Dutch Film Festival 2005)

• The Best of NCRV Dokument (2006)

• Best Film NPO-Doc (2004)

https://www.lemmingfilm.com/productions/child-of-the-commune

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1058708/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_6_nm_1_in_0_q_communekind

https://www.idfa.nl/en/film/489cb5cc-9c07-4a0f-a99f-b55dd10d99fc/communekind/

26000 FACES: CHIN CHIN EN ZHOU-YA

Foundation 26000 Faces invited filmmakers to make two-minute films of asylum seekers who have exhausted all legal remedies. In doing so, they managed to rock the political balance on this issue. The project aroused a lot of attention with the television broadcast of the first 75 films. Maroesja directed one of them.

MY MOTHERS DREAM (2006)

In the Dutch memoir MY MOTHERS DREAM, Maroesja shares her personal experiences and insights about the Bhagwan/OSHO cult from the child’s perspective.

What started as a beautiful, utopian idea with thousands of devoted followers across the globe, eventually transformed into a cult where sexual freedom became a threat to the children.

MY MOTHERS DREAM was published in Dutch and translated to German (DER TRAUM MEINER MUTTER).

https://nieuwamsterdam.nl/producten/de-droom-van-mijn-moeder-9789046800508

https://www.amazon.nl/Traum-meiner-Mutter-Kindheit-Bhagwan-Kommune/dp/3404616413

As assistent producer Maroesja contributed to the release of many Dutch documentary films, among which FAMILIEGEHEIM by Jaap van Hoewijk (NCRV), VERDRONKEN LAND by Carin Goeijers (IKON), MAN-KIND by David Blitz (VRT), SADHANA by Peter Sackman (OHM), EN PASSANT by Mirjam Boelsums and Lony Scharenborg (NCRV), TODA UNA VIDA and I SOENI/DE DROOM, and many others.

Maroesja Perizonius

Maroesja is a documentary director with a background in journalism and copywriting, and so works across the board. She has also worked as a documentary researcher, fundraiser, assistant-producer, producer and non-fiction writer.

Please scroll down for portfolio.

 
CHILDREN OF THE CULT (2024)
 
 
 
 
 
In October 2024, Maroesja’s new feature length documentary CHILDREN OF THE CULT premièred in UK and Ireland cinema’s, after which it was aired on ITV Exposure on the 13th of October.
 
CHILDREN OF THE CULT is a personal investigation into the Rajneesh/Osho movement. One of the world’s biggest and most successful cults, it had communes in more than 30 countries in the 1970s and 1980s and was portrayed in the 2018 Netflix series WILD WILD COUNTRY. Filmmaker Maroesja, herself a child of the communes, travells around the world connecting and interviewing other former commune children, and reveals a shocking truth about the children that has long been concealed, and that WILD WILD COUNTRY failed to tell.
Until today, no one has yet been called to account for the harm caused to the children. In the course of her investigation, Maroesja unmasks perpetrators and pursues answers from the closest members of the cults inner circle.
 
 
This film, produced by the London based, award winning documentary production company DM Productions, was three years in the making together with consultant producer and writer Lily Dunn. Dunn’s father was a follower of the same cult, about whom she wrote the devastating memoir SINS OF MY FATHER: A daughter, A cult, A wild unravelling.
 
Directing on Maroesja’s side is Alice McShane, known for her work on the award winning documentary on Russell Brand: In Plain Sight.
 
Production: David Modell, DM Productions
Distribution: MagnetFilm
 
The Guardian
The Sun
The Times
Time Out
Morning Star
Film Review Daily
BFI (British Film Institute)
City AM
The Times
 
 
 
Trouw
 
 
 

26000 FACES: CHIN CHIN EN ZHOU-YA

Foundation 26000 Faces invited filmmakers to make two-minute films of asylum seekers who have exhausted all legal remedies. In doing so, they managed to rock the political balance on this issue. The project aroused a lot of attention with the television broadcast of the first 75 films. Maroesja directed one of them.

CHILD OF THE COMMUNE (2004)

Maroesja wrote and directed CHILD OF THE COMMUNE, a personal documentary about her childhood in the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh/OSHO cult (Lemming Film/NCRV Dokument/YLE) which premiered at IDFA in 2004. The film was broadcast in twelve European countries and on Arte.

Awards:

• Best Debut (Dutch Film Festival 2005)

• The Best of NCRV Dokument (2006)

• Best Film NPO-Doc (2004)

https://www.lemmingfilm.com/productions/child-of-the-commune

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1058708/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_6_nm_1_in_0_q_communekind

https://www.idfa.nl/en/film/489cb5cc-9c07-4a0f-a99f-b55dd10d99fc/communekind/

MY MOTHERS DREAM (2006)

In the Dutch memoir MY MOTHERS DREAM, Maroesja shares her personal experiences and insights about the Bhagwan/OSHO cult from the child’s perspective.

What started as a beautiful, utopian idea with thousands of devoted followers across the globe, eventually transformed into a cult where sexual freedom became a threat to the children.

MY MOTHERS DREAM was published in Dutch and translated to German (DER TRAUM MEINER MUTTER).

https://nieuwamsterdam.nl/producten/de-droom-van-mijn-moeder-9789046800508

https://www.amazon.nl/Traum-meiner-Mutter-Kindheit-Bhagwan-Kommune/dp/3404616413

As assistent producer Maroesja contributed to the release of many Dutch documentary films, among which FAMILIEGEHEIM by Jaap van Hoewijk (NCRV), VERDRONKEN LAND by Carin Goeijers (IKON), MAN-KIND by David Blitz (VRT), SADHANA by Peter Sackman (OHM), EN PASSANT by Mirjam Boelsums and Lony Scharenborg (NCRV), TODA UNA VIDA and I SOENI/DE DROOM, and many others.