Astrid studied at AKI ArtEZ Art and Design Enschede and Edinburgh College in Scotland. During her studies she made the prize-winning documentary The angelmakers. After The Lost Colony and My Enschede she produced two children’s documentaries: Wool Fever and The Hideout. This last film won her the Golden Calf at the Netherlands Film Festival in the category of Best Short Documentary.
Floor van der Meulen (1989) is a Dutch filmmaker currently based in Amsterdam. She studied Audiovisual Design at the Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam and Film & Aesthetics at The School of Visual Arts in New York City. After graduating she soon was granted with the opportunity to make her first feature documentary film. Together with producer KeyDocs and Dutch broadcaster BNNVARA she made Storming Paradise - a film about young Dutch muslims who leave everything and everyone behind to join the Jihad in Syria. Floor has won the European Film Award in 2016.
Floris-Jan van Luyn (1967) is filmmaker and writer. After several years as a correspondent in China for Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad, he turned to filmmaking with his debut The Unforbidden City (2008). Ever since he has made a dozen films, which earned him universal praise. His film Rainmakers (2010) screened at many festivals and was awarded at Sheffield Doc/Fest, Rome IFF, Docville Leuven a.o. and broadcast by VPRO, ARTE and ZDF. The Bastard (2018) won the TRT Award and the Movies that Matter Golden Butterfly.
Ingeborg Jansen (1965) makes documentaries where she looks for ‘big’ themes on the square millimetre. Observing, without judgement. As a filmmaker she often chooses for one location to point her camera at. Where she lets herself be surprised by the people whom she meets and where she searches for nuance and humour in the small. Examples of which are her documentaries Higher than the Kuip (one of the top 10 television moments of 2011 according to DWDD), Almost 18 (IDFA 2013), and Chicagoblok, Stories from the Elevator (2008).
Jeroen van Velzen (1975) grew up in Kenya and lived in India, South Africa and Britain. His international background shines through in his films. His first long-form documentary Wavumba - Smelling Of Fish (2012, 80'), about two Kenyan fishermen, won him the accolade of Best New Documentary Director Award at Tribeca.
After graduating from the School of Journalism in Utrecht in 2008, Jona worked for a year as a reporter for RTV Utrecht and VPRO. Inspired by the cinematic approach at VPRO, he applied for the Dutch Film Academy. In his third year there, he made 'Be hard or go under' won the Megaherz Film School Award 2013 at DOK.fest Munich. In the last year of his studies Jona made the documentary "I". with which he won the VPRO Award. Currently he is working on his debut 'The Alchemist'.
Kim graduated from the Utrecht School of the Arts in 2009 with her short documentary The care factory. The film was selected to enter the IDFA 2009 Student Competition and won her a Wildcard of the Netherlands Filmfund. Kim turned this into What the cat sees, a documentary that was nominated for a Golden Calf at the Netherlands Film Festival. The year after, the made her first mid-length film Among Women, about the initiation of two girls in Zambia.
In 2012 Laura Hermanides (1988) graduated to the Film Academy with an essaistic generation portrait: We are ready. After graduation, she decided to construct less and distill more; she wanted to find her stories into reality. Her most recent film, Prove me wrong, was the first step in this direction. In Out of love she wanta to develop this further; to develop a vision, a cinematic form, to recognize the story and to lift it out the noise of everyday life.
Marinka graduated in 2012 from the School of the Arts with her documentary My darling dog has cancer. This is a film film about the owners of pets with cancer. This film ran at various festivals and was broadcasted by the VPRO. Now Marinka is ready to be heard again. As part of the Teledoc Campus of the Filmfund she is developing her new short documentary This summer is mine. Within her films she challenges herself to portray people at their most vulnerable.
Mea Dols de Jong (1988, Amsterdam) studied Philosophy and Physics before turning to the world of documentary filmmaking. Her graduation film If Mama Ain't Happy, Nobody's Happy had its international premiere at the International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (IDFA), was critically acclaimed by the press and over 17 international awards, a.o. Best Short Documentary Slamdance Film Festival en Best Short Documentary Message to Men Film Festival. At the moment she is - besides her work as a documentary film maker - running the new content-video department of NRC, one of The Netherlands' leading newspapers. In 2016 Variety named Mea Dols de Jong as one of the 'Top 10 European Filmmakers to Watch'.
Nathalie Crum (1986) graduated in 2007 from the teacher training at the Maasticht Academy of Fine Arts and Design. After having worked as a photographer and as accompanist of people with intellectual disabilities, she decided to continue studying at the Dutch Film Academy in Amsterdam.
During this study she did a year-long internship at the television programme Wild Kitchen by Wouter Klootwijk. In 2014 she graduated with the documentary Motherland. Shortly after Nathalie took part in the Kids & Docs Workshop in 2015 that led to the youth documentary Ten. In the same year she directed her first feature documentary The Four Winters of Theo den Boogaard for NTR The Hour of the Wolf.
Niels van Koevorden (1984) graduated from the Netherlands Film Academy in 2010. His short documentary By her side (2012) won variuous awards, including the jury prize at Full Frame. Together with Sabine Lubbe Bakker he directed Ne Me Quitte Pas (2014), which won a dozen awards at internatinoal festivals, including Tribeca, Hot Docs, DocAviv and Chicago IFF. They together also directed their first narrative feature film Becoming Mona (2020).
Niels also works as a cinematographer for both documentary and fiction films.
Renko graduated from the Utrecht School of the Arts in 2010. During his studies, he was editor-in-chief and director for a series called Sharpen your opinions, made for the National Committee 4 and 5 May. He also worked on Teleac’s How? Like this! and Absolutely Sure! His graduation film Going and Back is a short documentary about trip to and from the last school camp for three boys in the final grade of primary school. The film screened at numerous (inter)national film festivals. After graduation he co-directed the National Geographic Channel series Made in NL.
At age 13, Wiam Al-Zabari (1982) fled from his homeland Iraq. Becoming a film maker was never a possibility for him. Only in The Netherlands did Wiam discover he was an artist. Dance provided him a gateway in The Netherlands; it helped him find his place in the Dutch community. But it was not enough. To support his dancing, Wiam started making video-clips. That is how he discovered his second love: making films. Consequently, Wiam graduated (class of 2008) at the HKU (The Utrecht School of the Arts) having specialized in Screen Directing for Fiction. Wiam directs fiction and documentary films.
Tom Fassaert
Tom Fassaert debuted with his feature length documentary An Angel in Doel (2011), about a small Belgian village threatened with demolition. It premiered at the Berlinale, screened at +50 festivals worldwide and won several international awards. With his second documentary, A Family Affair (2015), Tom explores the complicated relationships in his own family. It was the Opening Film of IDFA 2015 where Tom also received the prestigious Prins Bernhard Cultuur Fonds Documentary Award for his works. After winning the Special Jury Award at IDFA, the film traveled all over the world and won many prizes. For his new project, Tom joins hands with Een van de jongens to create a sequel to his last film. With Between Brothers, Tom explores the relationship between his father Rob and his brother René.
Wieke Kapteijns (1990) is a Dutch documentary director and archival researcher. After studying (Public) History, he focused on the use and reuse of archival footage in creative documentaries. He directed several international YouTube series on World War II but lately, he’s shifted towards premium linear documentaries. With When she is not there he crafted a deeply personal film about his mother, whom he lost at age six, piecing together her image using photos, found footage, objects, and home videos. Kapteijns also conducts archival research for others’ documentaries and often contributes to final editing.