Artistic Direction : Greg&Lio
Photographer : Jean Counet
Photographed under artistic direction of infamous French directors duo Greg&Lio, Orelsan's 3rd album “La fete est finie” smashed all records after its release in France. Being a diamant album in several months, the album has sold more than 800.000 times.
(C) Wagram Music
A story about mushrooms & meditation
What happens when you administer psychedelics to experienced zen monks? A neuroscientist and a zen master carry out a double-blind experiment on a sphinxlike mountain in Switzerland. Their goal: to examine the nature of consciousness.
“If approached respectfully and under good conditions, these substances have the power to facilitate the real deep spiritual mystical experience”
– Vanja Palmers in ‘Descending the Mountain’
On the last day of a 5-day retreat, a group of zen monks – who have never used psychedelics before – is given a psychedelic drug, the second group receives a placebo. Mystical experiences are induced through a combination of deep meditation and psilocybin, a psychoactive compound found in magic mushrooms.This scientific experiment, which was published in Nature magazine in 2020, might be able to lift the controversy that has clouded the realm of psychedelics for far too long.
Scientist Franz Vollenweider and zen master Vanja Palmers descend from the mountain of bliss, to teach us how we can integrate mysticism into our day-to-day life.
Leaving the iconic visuals of the 60’s behind, Nevejan allows animation, sound, and A.I. visual art to create a contemporary rendering of the mystical experience of oneness with nature.
‘Descending the Mountain’ is a mesmerising testimony from director Maartje Nevejan of inner climate change that shows us how psychedelics could create a revolution in improving mental health and strengthen our connection with our environment.
I both shot and photographed the film
Produced by: Global Inside
A Strange Love Affair with Ego is a feature-length documentary about the human love affair with our ego. Driven by her own fascination for her sister’s big ego, filmmaker Ester Gould sets out to unravel a both classic and current theme: self-admiration and ego. How does self-esteem work? How do we balance the scale of self-love? This essayistic film intertwines the director’s off-screen narrative with observational scenes and interviews. It looks at ego in different stages of life, from childhood to adulthood, from the vast Scottish countryside to eclectic London and star-struck L.A. The film takes us on a journey past various stages in the development of the ego and challenges us to think about our own love relationship with ourselves.
I worked as DOP and still photographer for the film. The stills have been published in a variety of film and newspapers and been used in the promotional material of the film.
For this seven-part documentary series, Sarah Sylbing and Ester Gould, the makers of the award-winning series Debt Society (2016) return to the district of Amsterdam-Noord, this time to take a closer look at opportunities and inequality in education. In this diverse district, there is a relatively high level of poverty, despite the recent influx of well-off, well-educated families. At the end of primary school, aged 11 or 12, Dutch children receive a recommendation that determines the academic level of their education at secondary school—and thus affects the rest of their lives.
Class closely follows various children in the district for a year. Some are in their last year of primary school; others are already at secondary school, experiencing the consequences of their final-year recommendation. While some have to deal with a lack of resources or instability at home, others feel weighed down by the pressure to succeed.
The series explores the everyday lives of these children and poses the question whether schools can make a difference. Teachers, school boards, and the deputy mayor of education are also struggling to work out how to give every child a fair chance.
I worked as cinematographer and still photographer on both the tv serie, online campain, magazine and the impact campaign.
Produced by: HUMAN
‘If the Sun Explodes’ is a film by director Hanna van Niekerk, winner of the Nederlands Filmfonds Wildcard award. ‘If The Sun Explodes’ is a road movie about Yara (Wies Fest) and Philippe (Egbert-Jan Weeber), who are young and in love but also very different. Faced with challenges sparked by a crisis situation far from home, their relationship is put to the test.
Moviezone Award Nederlands Film Festival 2016
I worked as dop and still photographer during this roadmovie we completely shot in Lithuania.
In a working-class neighborhood in North Amsterdam, almost everyone is deep in debt. Every month a parade of heavies, a bailiff, a police officer and a locksmith moves through the streets to evict people from their homes. It’s the ultimate, most dramatic consequence of the centuries-old hunt down on debtors. While the locals struggle with fines, guilt and shame, bailiffs and social workers face locked doors. You can’t get blood out of a stone. So who pays the price in the end and who is to blame?
I photographed for 2 years during the shooting of a primetime tv documentary series and podcast episodes. Debt Society, directed by Ester Gould and Sarah Sylbing , was a national TV hit in the Netherlands, led to public debate and won several awards including the Silver Nipkow Disk. The principle camerawork has been done by Niels van Coevorden and Jefrim Rothuizen, with a little addition by me. The photos have been published widely in newspapers and websites. The pictures were also used to make the strong visual brand of the series, magazine, website and impact campaign.
When director Maartje Nevejan was a child she had absence epilepsy seizures, short moments of not being there. To experience other versions of reality and dimensions, brings you in a very lonely place. It is scary and fascinating at the same time. When her son was also diagnosed with absence epilepsy, they invented a game where they would find images in the outer world that would give them the “absence experience”.
This game was the base of this film. A film Nevejan was afraid of making for the medical science describes it for centuries as a condition without consciousness, a short cut in the brain, a nothingness.
In the film Nevejan goes on a journey with four young adults, who were part of the art project. They encounter neurologists, scientists and artists, wild wolves, black holes, Anish Kapoor Black and technological machines. How do our experience feel, taste, sound and smell like? How do these inner images occur? Are they real? Can we find a language to talk about it? Could these holes in our lives turn into portals towards new knowledge?
This mysterious non-being, on the bottom of our existence can give us, just as a dark night full of stars, a feeling of belonging and also create a huge fear in us.
I both shot the film with a video and foto camera. The pictures were used for the poster, promotion and impact campaign of the film.
Produced by: Cerutti Film
Tea Tupajic was seven years old when the civil war in the former Yugoslavia reached her hometown Sarajevo. The scars the war left play a major role in her work as an artist. She asked Dutch war veterans Frank and Harm to spend a night in conversation with her. The empty theater gradually darkens. Tupajic wants answers to some painful questions, but she also tries to discover something in the two men that can give her hope.
A woman, a man, and a camera: through this simple set-up, Darkness There and Nothing More concentrates all attention onto the words, gestures, and acts in these two meetings, often captured in tightly framed shots. Despite a shared longing for some kind of deliverance, the frames show a dialog between two worlds that simply won’t combine. Harm carries a huge sense of guilt, while Frank is entirely locked off from his emotions. Tupajic tries to explain that none of her family and friends, despite being alive, really survived the war. Are they ever going to understand each other’s grief?
While I was requested by the director to shoot 8 hours in a row each of the shooting nights, I managed to take some pictures which were finally used as stills and as poster.
Produced by: seriousFILM & AS Film in co-production with Basalt Film
In Miriam Guttmann’s Dutch series Seeds of Deceit, showing at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival, once again, all eyes are on the late Dutch fertility doctor Jan Karbaat, who used his own sperm to inseminate his patients – needless to say, without their consent. But his “children”, surrounded by scores of their half-siblings, still try to create a community instead of focusing on their father's problematic legacy.
I assisted main DOP Sjors Morsman on several shoots, and took some behind the scenes pictures that were used for the promotion of the film on various websites.
Produced by: De Familie
In his visually appealing feature-length documentary, Marc Schmidt enters the irrational and uncontrollable world of sleep.
Schmidt sets out on a journey to discover different types of sleep disorders, moving from very clinical areas such as the hospital, via the noisy and sleepless streets of Brussels, to traditional religious rituals in Suriname. Each setting has its own protagonist, themselves exploring the extraordinary conditions which define their sleeping habits; examples include Exploding Head Syndrome and narcolepsy. We gradually learn that the effects are not limited to sleep itself, as the consequences of their sleeping habits define their entire lives — when nightmares don’t stop after you wake up, and your brain triggers extreme sensory experiences during your sleep. This lack of control is what connects all the subjects shown.
The film has been shot over the period of 3 years, with me both behind the moving images and still image camera.
Actor Tarikh Janssen, director of photography Jean Charles Counet and director Hanna van Niekerk share a strong love for improvisational acting, working with non-actors and straddling the boundaries between fiction and documentary. In the summer of 2020 they produced the short guerrilla film 'A Remark You Made', inspired by real life conversations held with colleagues, friends and family in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd in the U.S. and how this reignited the debate on racism in Dutch society.
DOP and still photography by me.
Produced by Hanna, Tarikh and me.
The internet is closing in on us to connect anyone, anywhere, anytime. Some people cannot stand the electromagnetic radiation from the wireless networks that surround us. They feel the pulse of the wireless world on their bodies. Are they the canaries in the coal mine?
‘Ubiquity is a truly important film for those who constantly tap on their phones enough to create an unconscious habit out of it and a potent warning sign for excessive use of technologies.’ – Get Reel Movies
The internet is closing in on us to connect anyone, anywhere, anytime. Some people cannot stand the electromagnetic radiation from the wireless networks that surround us. They feel the pulse of the wireless world on their bodies. Are they the canaries in the coal mine?
The film and pictures were shot in both analog and digital to respect our protoganists needs.
Produced by: BALDR Films
In Hanna van Niekerk’s short film SOAP, we accompany the Flemish retirees Gerben and Louise during a weekend getaway in Amsterdam. Their stay at Hotel Aphrodite initially seems solely about muddling through tourist masses and joint silent meals. But when Louise discovers the Aphrodite hotel soap, the weekend takes an unexpected and magical twist.
DOP’ed and photographed by me.
Produced by: Hazazah Pictures.
Zaatari is a refugee camp in Jordan, close to the Syrian border, which over the years has grown to become a settlement with a population of 80,000. It is an improvised city in the desert, with prefab units instead of proper housing and sandy paths instead of streets. The thousands of children who live there have few possessions; a soccer ball is a luxury, a second-hand bike a treasure. In Zaatari Djinn, Catherine van Campen follows four children who each cope with the camp’s difficult circumstances in their own way. The dreamy Maryam keeps herself occupied with soccer practice and theater rehearsals, while Hammoudi hardly seems aware of the tragic situation in his hometown in Syria. The same cannot be said of the downcast Ferras, who has to work for a living, or rebellious Fatma, who makes friends with a rooster. Stories about djinns – supernatural beings that can be either good or evil – are a leitmotif in the film. With her poetic, observational style, Van Campen not only documents the children’s daily lives, but also lays bare their souls.
Still and moving photography by me.
Produced by: Witfilm
Merle is an eight-year-old girl living in the predominantly Catholic south of the Netherlands. She is preparing for her first Holy Communion. She goes to communion classes to learn about the rituals, the sacraments and the Last Supper, and her family and friends bombard her with questions. While Merle’s friends are mostly interested in the bouncy house and the presents, her grandfather and father talk about the deeper meaning of this initiation rite. What about Merle herself, though, the little girl who’s taking it all in with wide-eyed amazement? What does she believe? When it’s over, does she feel closer to Jesus? And what did the sacrament taste like?
Director Eva Nijsten shows Merle’s first official introduction to the Catholic faith in a playful and non-judgmental way. On the big day itself, Merle looks radiant in a gorgeous white dress made by her grandmother. And once the official ceremony is over, it’s time— naturally—for the bouncy house. And when the shooting was over I had some time to make the picture that ended up as poster.
Produced by: Tangerine Tree