Witte wieven are the “white women” or “wise women” of Dutch Low Saxon origins. They were female herbalists healers who also could see the future.
In this film by director Didier Konings and writer Marc S. Nollkaemper, Frieda (Anneke Sluiters) is judged when she is unable to produce a child with her husband Hikko (Len Leo Vincent). Despite being a devout woman, when she emerges from a night of horror in the forest when Gelo (Leon van Waas) assaults a young girl named Sasha and almost takes her as well, everyone claims that she has become a witch.
The society that she lives in is one where she’s not even allowed to lead a prayer and where her husband can’t been infertile. Instead, she is the problem and even her self-flagellation isn’t good enough as he stops her and whips her the right way.
After visions of the white women, Frieda brings the forest to life, impaling Gelo multiple times and finding so many trees that have done the same to horrible men for centuries. Who blames her for running to those trees forever, leaving behind the patriarchy that has never seen her as anything other than property?
