Biography
His last film as a director was “A FAIR PLAY” a psycho-thriller with jealousy as its theme. Derek de Lint and Lysette Anthony were the main actors in “A FAIR PLAY”. Matthijs van Heijningen produced and gave the film extensive international circulation.
Roeland Kerbosch (1985)
For a Lost Soldier
Before that, Roeland Kerbosch wrote and directed “FOR A LOST SOLDIER” (1993), based on the successful novel by Rudi van Dantzig about the relationship of a 13-year-old boy in Friesland with a Canadian soldier at the end of the 2nd World War. “For a Lost Soldier” won, among other things, the prize for the best film, and the audience prize, at the Turin Film Festival. The film was very well received everywhere and was released in the US. widely released. Despite the fact that the film was considered a typical European art film, the film spent weeks on the top twenty list of Variety, the magazine for the American film industry. “For a Lost Soldier” has made an important contribution to the acceptance of homosexuality outside the Netherlands.
Socially involved and politically active
Throughout his career as a filmmaker, Roeland Kerbosch has been strongly socially involved and politically active (PvdA, neighborhood work De Pijp Amsterdam). Based on this involvement, he has unobtrusively committed himself to vulnerable groups in the world in several areas outside the film world. Through the Valentijn Foundation, he organized three benefit dance galas for the benefit of the Duchenne Parent Project, the non-profit organization for research into a therapy for the Duchenne’s disease, a deadly hereditary defect that occurs only in boys, which slowly breaks down the musculature datum. In 1973 he made the financial start of the Amazone Foundation, the pioneering semi-feminist breeding ground and gallery in Amsterdam, where female artists could exhibit and where cultural education courses were given. Amazone pioneered intellectual and artistic emancipation.
Criticism of the film academy
Roeland Kerbosch already made his first film at the Netherlands Film Academy (1961): “Maman, tes Fleurs”, a short feature film with his brother – actor Michiel Kerbosch – in the leading role. Wonderful reviews did not prevent him from being expelled from the Academy: making a film yourself was not allowed according to the regulations. And then also giving a critical interview about the film academy in the then daily newspaper De Tijd was a disgrace. After the subsequent “student revolt” he was allowed to come back, to continue to receive his diploma in 1962 according to the rules.
Place of honor
He started his film career as a documentary filmmaker for Dutch television. In London in the early sixties he made a series of pop programs that can be regarded as the forerunners of today’s video clips. All that film material (from Jimi Hendrix to Alan Price, and from The Move to Georgie Fame) has been purchased by the Museum of Popular Music in Seattle and has been given a place of honor in its permanent exhibition.
Around the Old Church
His first cinema film was the long documentary “Around the Old Church” (1968), a portrait of the Amsterdam wallets, a daring subject for that time; “Around the Old Church” filmed according to the documentary author style of the Nouvelle Vague: the director behind the camera, and the sometimes unpredictable environment as co-author. The VPRO wanted to add denominations to the film for legal reasons. Roeland Kerbosch refused to broadcast the film in a censored form. “Around the Old Church” subsequently became a great commercial success in the cinema, and was never broadcast on television.
Report from Biafra
Together with Johan van der Keuken and Louis van Gasteren, Roeland Kerbosch made “Report from Biafra” (1968). At the time, this documentary received – very special for a documentary – the prize for the best Dutch film: the then State Prize for Dutch Film Art.
Documentaries
For more than ten years, Roeland Kerbosch subsequently made documentaries in and about Third World subjects, usually in collaboration with VARA or NOS, including several prize-winning documentaries.
In 1969 he and Johan van der Keuken made “In the Intoxication of the Revolution”, a documentary about the inspiring new path of the Arab socialist revolution of the then still ideologically passionate Muammar Gaddafi in Libya. The film was awarded at the New York Film Festival and subsequently shown on public television in the US.
With writer Bert Schierbeek he made “Letter to Vorster”: a film poem, a sharp protest against Apartheid edited purely from archive material, which was awarded the FIPRESCI press prize at the then renowned Leipzig film festival.
He considered the social effects of his work more important: For the VPRO TV series “On behalf of…” he made two episodes, which led to extra municipal efforts through then aldermen Jan Schaefer and Han Lammers with regard to the living environment of “De Kinder van de Pijp” in that impoverished Amsterdam neighbourhood.
A fundraising campaign was linked to the TV screening of “Eyes on Angola” (1972) about the freedom struggle in Angola: The proceeds could be used to build a hospital in the liberated areas. The diary that Roeland kept was published by Bruna under the title “Eyes on Angola”. The documentaries (1975) about the newly liberated Portuguese colonies of Guinea Bissau and the Cape Verde Islands were also accompanied by successful fundraising campaigns for the construction of these newly independent states.
Roeland Kerbosch was a supporter of the sociological theory popular at the time, that the mixture of the poor but independent rural African peasant population and the fast-growing dependent urban proletariat could produce an innovative morale, an example for the whole world, a new society based on new foundations . In line with this, he wrote and directed the cinema film “Vandaag or Morgen” (1976) with, among others, Ton van Duinhoven and Gees Linnebank, commissioned by the Ministry for Development Cooperation.
“Diary from South Africa” (1978, edited by Aart Staartjes) was a triptych in the form of a diary about the struggle against Apartheid, secretly filmed in South Africa under dangerous circumstances with the support of the then underground African National Congress. The English-language compilation of those documentaries made that battle known to a large audience worldwide.
From his grandfather’s inheritance, he was surprised to receive a collection of professional film material that he did not even suspect existed. Between 1917 and 1937, grandfather Kerbosch recorded colonial life on the cinchona plantation Tjiniroean – the former Dutch East Indies – of which he was director. Grandson Roeland Kerbosch made a candid and intriguing family portrait about a friendly despot inspired by humanism, admired by his grandson, detested by his children: “De Heilige Familie” (1978).
With the Nederlands Blazers Ensemble and Kees van Kooten and Wim de Bie he made “More than a Concert”, a musical documentary on tour in the USA. It was the first stereo broadcast on Dutch television (in collaboration with radio 4). The film was awarded first prize at the Music Film Festival in Besançon.
In the scarce time between the many films he made, Roeland Kerbosch also wrote four novels. While writing the novel “Vanaf de Overkant” (1980) in Sri Lanka, he came into contact with a local fisherman, who wanted to compete with the adjacent hotel with a bed and breakfast, but a storm had destroyed part of his house and badly damaged his boat. Together they designed a two-room hostel, Roeland paid ($1000.00), and three weeks later there was a hostel, which immediately generated sufficient income for the whole family. A modest example of direct development cooperation.
In the jungle of Burma, working on the documentary “Shots” about the opium trade in the Golden Triangle (1980, NOS, production: Aart Staartjes), he decided to focus on making feature films again after this documentary: Also the feature film can have social relevance and perhaps reach a larger audience in a more direct way than a documentary which, at the time, could only be shown on television.
In four years he produced – and co-authored – three important Dutch feature films: “Ademloos” (directed by Mady Saks, with Monique van de Ven and Linda van Dijk) about a young mother suffering from postpartum depression.” De IJssalon ”( directed by Dimitri Frenkel Frank), released in the US under the title “Private Resistance”, a true, intimate, tragic, emotional, and beautifully filmed war story with Bruno Ganz, Gerard Thoolen and Renée Soutendlijk. “The Dream”, a Frisian epic about the rise of the anarchist and socialist movement. “De Dream” was the Dutch entry to the Academy Awards in 1986. All three films were honored at various film festivals: Karlovy Vary, Miami, Taormina, among others.
He worked in Los Angeles for several years, including for The Hollywood Reporter, for which he produced the daily one-hour TV program about the film festival during the Cannes Film Festival. As a means of stimulating Dutch film production, he introduced the idea of the American Movie of the Week, which was given shape here as Telefilm.
With Matthijs van Heijningen as producer, he then co-produced and directed “Voor een Verloren Soldaat”, and “A Fair Play”.
On the occasion of her farewell from Dutch National Ballet, he organized a benefit dance gala with international dance soloists on Valentine’s Day 2000 for his wife ballet dancer Valerie Valentine in a sold-out Carré, the proceeds of which (fl. 120,000.00) go entirely to the benefit came to the Duchenne Parent Project.
For the theater he wrote and directed the successful program “The4ofus” (2001), especially for Valerie Valentine, a cabaret-like combination of dance and comedy. “The4ofus” was the opening program of Amsterdam’s Panama TheaterClub and played there for four weeks. The program then played for a week at the Wilhelm Theater in Stuttgart by invitation.
Commissioned by the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, he subsequently wrote and directed “De Kleine Ballerina” (2003), a not-so-serious introduction to music and dance for children from three to very old. After the performances in the Concertgebouw, “De Kleine Ballerina” went on a national tour.
In addition to all this, Roeland Kerbosch also owned The Movies in Amsterdam since 1989, where many of his own films have previously been screened. The Movies is the oldest cinema theater (1912) in the Netherlands, one of the oldest in the world. Under his leadership, The Movies changed from a student cinema with uncomfortable chairs, to a tastefully decorated, comfortable art house with four screens and an accompanying high-quality restaurant. And that in a period when independent cinemas have virtually disappeared and daring programming such as in The Movies is no longer possible anywhere else without government subsidy. Until October 1, 2007, he cherished the renowned and successful art house complex as a fragile jewel.
In 2004, he and Valerie Valentine made it possible to set up DanceStreet, the only professional studio space for independent dance in Amsterdam. With DanceStreet he once again proved his strong social involvement in the field of art and culture. DanceStreet had to close in 2008 due to a lack of government support.
He calls his main motivation the French philosophical school of the Éducation Permanente. A statement by Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber certainly applies to him: L’homme de la nouvelle ère n’a pas pour destin de se reposer: In this age, man is not called to do nothing.