A small village in the Netherlands spent years making a feature film about the worst thing that ever happened there.
No professional actors. No film school graduates. No government grants. Just 100+ people from a small community who decided their story deserved to be told and told it themselves.
The film is called Zondebokken ("Scapegoats"). It is about the Buckriders, a real 18th-century criminal gang whose reign of terror led local authorities to arrest, torture and execute over 500 mostly innocent people. The villages where this happened still exist. Several cast members are direct descendants of those who were killed.
Everything was filmed on location. The same fields. The same hills. The same stone walls. Elderly locals played ancestors from their own family trees. Teenagers who grew up with these stories as whispered family history suddenly had to embody them on camera.
It opened in Dutch and Belgian cinemas in 2023. Audiences watched their neighbours on screen. Their own streets. Their own faces in period costume. Something that had been buried for three centuries finally had a shape.
by Odd_Assistant6713
9 Comments
This is just brilliant.
this is honestly so powerful, seeing a community come together like that to confront their history is no small feat. can’t wait to see how it resonates with audiences!
Burying those two guys at the end really shows their dedication to getting the story told. Their sacrifice will be remembered.
Ooh, this is exciting
After this you are legally required to visit the Efteling to get on Villa Volta (ride based on the legend)
THE KING ORDERED IT!
Where did you find the information about this having no budget / volunteers only / etc.?
I had never heard about any of this and did a little research.
Whether there was any one central gang called the Buckriders is at best unclear. Somewhere along the way, superstition cropped up, and stories spread of Devil worshippers who rode on the backs of flying bucks (hence the name), moved with supernatural speed, and were particularly violent and ruthless.
More likely, any small group of criminals who committed heinous acts would be ascribed to the Buckriders. It felt like they could strike at different places and disappear because the incidents weren’t actually related, but it basically made it so that anyone accused of a robbery was ALSO a devil worshipping witch, so they were either executed on purpose, or died under interrogation.
What a dark time. Good on these people for putting this out there and keeping the truth alive.
Ai generated caption. This looks cool though