An observer at heart, LENNY found his way into filmmaking through breakdancing, DJing, and shooting rap videos. Born in Hoogeveen, he grew up in an AZC (Asylum seekers centre) in the Netherlands, surrounded by a mix of cultures and creativity. While his childhood dream was to become an FBI agent or a pilot, he ended up behind the camera, where he truly belongs. He graduated from the Netherlands Film Academy in 2024 and wants to make films that move people, stories about injustice, like Blue Bayou, rather than Hollywood blockbusters.

Outside filmmaking, he’s a low-key foodie, though his girlfriend claims he can't cook. He’ll try, but he always burns his tongue while tasting. One thing he’s religious about? Hand soap. Blame a fancy anniversary gift that got him hooked on expensive Loewe soap. And if you ever wake him up at night… don’t. Unless it's for a dream shoot.

Website Lenny

For a while JUDITH thought that she wanted to become a film critic. Until she discovered she wasn’t nowhere near critical when watching movies. So that plan had to be discarded. Luckily, she had a special experience during her bachelor year studying film at the University of Amsterdam. Like a calling from the heavens, she all of a sudden knew exactly how she wanted to tell a story and make a film. It ignited a spark, which made her go to the Netherlands Film Academie once she got her masters degree in film.

Having graduated in 2021, she now loves to make films that picture reality by being, uh, a bit off from reality. That being said, realistic drama also still lights the fire in her. Especially when there is a chance to bring a surprising insight to a character across, to tell the story behind the character and create sympathy for the bad guy by showing the different layers that hide within. But now don’t think she would have been better off becoming a serious psychiatrist or something. For sometimes life is also just plain simple about a good horror movie or a board game. Oh, and, of course, cake. Because since there is always a reason to celebrate something or the other, there is also always a reason for cake.

Website Judith

His parents running a campsite there, DAAN lived a year in France. After moving back to the Netherlands, he got into skateboarding. And in retrospect one can say that’s where it all started. Working his ass off at a garden centre, he could buy his first camera at the 13 and began to make skateboarding films straight away. Plants on the other hand, he didn’t touch anymore ever since graduating from the Netherlands Film Academy in 2016. He doesn’t want to get his hands dirty again, you see. Even the one single plant he has at home, a bonsai, needs to be taken care of by his girlfriend. What he does love however, is making films which surprise.

Website Daan

Born and raised in Rotterdam, through a friend of his father FLORIS visited a film set for the first time at the age of 14. Helping the video assistant out, his career started there and then, since from that moment on every school holiday he worked as a video assistant. That he got paid in gift vouchers, he didn’t mind at all, as long as he could be around. After graduating from high school he joined in professionally as a clapper loader and focus puller, working side by side with senior cinematographers like Reinier van Brummelen and Peter Greenaway. Being the first to figure out how to properly operate the revolutionary digital Red One, he was always there when that camera was used. Don't think however his fascination for doing weird stuff by now has dried up. Far from it! He still loves to build special rigs and trying out what else the camera has to give besides the usual, in order to make beautifully lighted films which have a bit of storytelling in them and a carefully thought-out style. Preferably with a nice cup of coffee to accompany him, because he likes coffee very much. In fact he has made it his life purpose to find the perfect coffee bean. But although he buys a bag in every single coffee bar he passes, the absolute perfect one he has not yet come across.

Website Floris

BOAS is born and raised in the Jordaan, the area that, like back in the days, used to be the working-class district of Amsterdam. He is a, as the Dutch would say, a real ‘Jordanees’, by now an almost extinct species. Starting his career as a DoP by making roadmovies during his train travels through Europe at the age of 17, he graduated from the Netherlands Film Academy in 2015. He loves to shoot moody and technically innovative images, as well as beauty and fashion films, a passion that has to compete though with his love for Italian food. If he’s not filming almost certainly he is cooking gnocchi with sage butter sauce, and the central theme when he goes to Italy for holiday is food, food, food. Oh, and he also collects his empty lip balm containers, just to see how many one uses in a lifetime.

Website Boas

As a child LOLA met Peter Pan, and was immediately hooked. She owned eight different copies of the book, her room was decorated in the colors of the movie, and only six years of age she made a live action film of the character. But then there was also mathematics. A subject she was very good at, and therefore might have been the thing to study. Still she panicked at the prospect. So when her father suggested she could also go to the Netherlands Film Academy, that idea came as an immediate relief. She graduated in 2020, preferring to work on projects she herself would like to watch. That’s where Peter Pan, he never stopped being a presence in her life, comes back into the picture. Cause except for addressing a social theme that gives importance, her favorite films always contain a touch of surrealism and fantasy. At the same time she keeps her two feet firmly on the ground and is very practical: she had to be, being the handy eldest in the family with a dad who has two left hands. So besides always taking care of everyone (call Lola if you need a ride in the middle of the night), she is the one who fixes things. You can imagine that sometimes creates a full and busy mind. That’s why she takes a walk before going to bed: to have a peaceful sleep after. That evening walk is the one thing she could never do without, together with music. Can you believe her Spotify rep of 2021 states that she listened to 249 music genres?!

Website Lola

MICHEL grew up near the beach in a Dutch province called Zeeland. He was always messing around outside, getting himself dirty in clay and mud. You can think he should have become a farmer, but this guy at the age of ten already knew what he wanted to be when growing up. As a kid with vivid imagination and a clear eye for images, he could not have gone anywhere else than to the Netherlands Film Academy, from which he graduated in 2017. Although he is hopelessly romantic, that is not necessarily his genre. Instead, what it is all about for him, is the approach with which a film is made, as well as the people he will work with. What also makes him tick, besides chilling around and doing just plain nothing, is food and a good run or walk. And, of course, how could we forget, his Landrover Defender. You can say he really likes this car, although it’s more accurate to speak of love. Obviously he drives one himself, but still you can wake him up in the middle of the night, dangling the keys of a brand new model, and he is yours to take you anywhere.

Website Michel

VICTOR was actually more of a musician, always playing in bands, before he enrolled at the Netherlands Film Academy. Still, next thing he knew, he graduated twice. First in 2006, in sound. But after working several years as a sound technician, the camera started to draw his interest. So in 2018 he graduated again, this time as a cinematographer. What he would love to make are art house films, although a genre film he also wouldn’t mind at all. Born and raised in Amsterdam, it took his girlfriend to show him the local restaurants which serve healthy and freshly made food. Cause, even though he is a, let’s say, 95% vegetarian, ask him for his favourite dish and he will still say hamburger. He holds himself in check, keeping up being veg, but otherwise he would eat the damn things every day.

Website Victor

Born and raised in rural Roelofarendsveen, ROY’s career started with harvesting tulip bulbs to earn some money (and next spent that on beer in the weekends). A few years later he was about the only one amongst his friends to move to the big city to study at the Netherlands Film Academy in Amsterdam, from which he graduated in 2016. He likes to make art house films, big or small, which show the natural beauty of life. What he doesn’t like, is cooking. You might even meet an angry Roy when you ask him to make some food, because although he is great at eating and loves to be invited to dinner parties, preparing his own meal is simply not his thing. He will however definitely show up for the annual fair in his hometown. He might be a man of the world, but when it’s that time of year in the village, there is only one place he wants to be.

Website Roy

COR is someone who is basically capable of everything. Like building mini fun fairs with real merry-go-rounds, haunted houses and cable cars in his backyard, as he used to do when small. Or play tunes for his friends in their mobile hang out. Even figure skating does not have any secrets for him, since he almost – no kidding! – became a professional in it at the age of 13. (Ask him to show you if you want proof.) Still, film making is what he likes to do best. After an education in which he learned everything about television, he realized he wanted to add more story telling to his cinematography. That’s why he did an internship with director Dick Maas and went to the Netherlands Film Academy. Graduating in 2017, now it’s his goal to make films that have some kind of social aspect to them and as such help to create a better world. But let’s not get too serious. Cause making people to forget daily life, if only for a moment, is something he just as much loves to achieve.

Website Cor

RICHARD was born and raised in the Dutch province of Brabant, close to the Belgium border. That location caused him to join about every art school in both countries, giving almost any discipline a try. He hopped from furniture design to architecture and from there along to photography, until at the filmschool of Brussels, he was officially requested to leave since he was spending his time on sets and artshows instead of attending classes. This is how he ended up being a self-made DOP, and, if you ask me in all humbleness, one of the best there is. The rainbow of interests he exposed in his nomadic study career is still a feature of his work, wanting the films he makes to be as diverse as possible. Whether you are talking about big Hollywoodian productions or small-budget films, Richard believes everything is interesting or in any case can be made interesting as long as you see the challenge in giving the project a signature. That’s also what he does with his home garden. Oh sorry gardens, since he has to maintain one of both his houses in Belgium as well as the one in Italy, of which the first one he planned in honour of architect Frank Lloyd Wright. There is one thing though over which he has been steadily single-minded all those years: a cup of japanese gyokuro tea, hand-brewed up to perfection, with a pastel de nata on the side. No need for any variation when it comes to that.

Website Richard

SEAN, as one can say, had been around before he graduated from the Netherlands Film Academy in 2023. Born in South Africa his parents dragged him to Great Britain as a toddler, and back again to South Africa two years later. At the age of eleven, there was another migration. Now to the Netherlands, where he still resides. So it was in the lowlands he started his career in film, with a wish to make every imaginable kind of movie. Therefore don’t put a knife to his throat and make him choose: he simply likes the whole bunch of genres. The same goes for music and sports by the way. Ask him what he favours, and he will answer he listens to almost everything and does football, hockey, competition swimming, running and cricket without enjoying one more than the other. It just excites him all. The only thing he has to be a bit less excited about is his slightly messy way of eating. Because however much he tries to keep his food on his plate, the chance that it ends up in the lap of the person next to him is nevertheless considerable.

Website Sean

An old soul, that’s what you can call SAM. At least if you judge him by his taste in movies and music, since he just loves the aged and early stuff. Still, it could also be he was just born in the wrong era. Anyway, as a boy his mother used to wake him up in the middle of the night to play in the first, fresh snow of winter. Something – the only thing – you can still get him out of bed for. Born and raised in Amsterdam, he went to the Netherlands Film Academy to graduate in 2016 and become a DOP. Special art house movies, documentaries, shorts and features are what he wants to make. While this doesn’t mean he wouldn’t answer the phone if Hollywood called, diving into the script to make something beautiful in order to truly move people is what he’s after. Something he also does when not filming, only then with food. Cause wow, can this man cook. He easily spends days in the kitchen to prepare a fancy dinner for his loved ones. So… anyone hungry?

Website Sam

After finishing an education in video, editing and camera, AZIZ left for an internship in Zambia. It was here he discovered he wanted to go to the Netherlands Film Academy, from which he indeed graduated in 2015. Born in Tripoli Libya, raised in a small town called Zeeland in the province of Brabant, he paused in Nijmegen and Utrecht for a while before moving on to Amsterdam, where he still resides. This is also where he plays soccer, three times a week, in different teams. Possibly a remnant of his younger days, when he dreamt of being a famous football player. But he also wanted to be a journalist, since he really likes to tell stories. And this is what he does, telling stories with a human touch. After all it’s all about the one in front of the camera, about what he or she has to say and give when offered full space. But Aziz doesn’t discriminate. Even if he shoots a bench in a park he wants to know why it’s there, listen to its story and grant it a personality. Yes, maybe you can say thinking everything through and adding meaning to every shot is Aziz’s trademark. That, and Bonobo of course, preferably very loud.

Website Aziz

MICK graduated at the Netherlands Film Academy in 1994 and is currently performing a role as a director of studies at the institute. He is a very diverse cinematographer, making shorts, features, commercials and documentaries. Therefore he comes in useful for almost anything, especially if there is a need for a Japanese speaking DoP since he masters that language a bit. Besides film, 70’ progressive rock and whale researching are some of his favourite subjects, although just saying nothing while filming nature is also fine. After all, he always wanted to be a wildlife filmmaker. So if you can’t find him, just have a look in the bush. Most probably that’s where he is.

Website Mick

If TIM is not behind the camera, he is either watching or talking about the Formula 1. Since basically those auto races is what his life is about, after taking care of his twins of course because they are number 1, together with his lovely girlfriend. The middle name of his daughter Nova, one of his number 1’s, is even Senna. Yes indeed, after Ayrton Senna, Tim’s racing driver hero. If the Formula 1 would have made bigger cars or he himself would have grown a little bit less tall, Tim probably would never have made it to the Netherlands Film Academy. But he graduated in 2011, and when it comes to making films he likes to quote Dan Wieden, co-founder of Wieden + Kennedy, by saying: ‘Make me laugh, make me cry, make me do something … just move me dude.’

Website Tim