Biography
An van Dienderen is a filmmaker graduated in audiovisual arts (Sint-Lukas, Brussels), obtained a PhD in Comparative Cultural Sciences (Ghent University), and was a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley. She made several documentaries screened worldwide, awarded with (inter)national prizes. She regularly publishes and lectures internationally on documentary, film, and visual/performative anthropology. She is affiliated as a tenured professor and senior researcher at KASK & CONSERVATORIUM, School of Arts Ghent (B).
She works at the intersection between documentary, anthropology, and visual arts. While exploring various documentary strategies and the anthropological relation between self and other, she also investigates the medium of film in a reflexive way. She explores the opposition of fact and fiction, imagination and observation, representation, and experience, using the importance of the image in our multicultural society as a point of departure. Her work shows the absurd, poetic, and often touching stories that these oppositions can hold in everyday life.
Her work has been presented worldwide, among others at the MoMa NY; the New York film festival; FID Marseille; CPH Dox Copenhagen; Cinéma du Réel Paris; Videonale Bonn; International Filmfestival Rotterdam; British Film Institute festival London; Yerba Buena Center San Fransisco; SCCA Center
for Contemporary Art Ljublijana; Margaret Mead Film and Video festival NY; Contemporary Art Biennale Talinn; MACRO – Museo d’Arte Contemporanea Roma; Black Star International Film Festival in Accra (Ghana); DMZ Korea International documentary festival; FIDOCS Festival Internacional de Documentales de Santiago; Museum of Contemporary Arts Athens; Bienal de la Imagen en Movimiento Buenos Aires; etc.
Her work is represented by Women make Movies, NY, Icarusfilms, NY, AndanaFilms (Fr) and Argos, Brussels. Her work is reviewed in the New York Times, Indiewire, Awards watch, Women and Hollywood, the International Cinephile Society, …
Selected Filmography
Kastom, 2024
Kastom directed with Hugo DeBlock examines representational regimes in Vanuatu, while at
the same time following Tarcisia, a woman who defies patriarchal patterns. She provides rebuttal scrutinizing the narratives created by the filmmakers. But to what extent can this rebuttal resonate in a film primarily in Western hands.
Prism, 2021 (78′)
Prism directed with Rosine Mbakam and Eléonore Yameogo questions racism in Western cinema. How can three makers with different colors of skin be together in one frame? The film problematizes the neutrality of the camera and its inequality of power to tackle other inequalities in society based on skin color.
Lili, 2015 (12′)
This short film on 16mm interrogates the supposedly neutral character of the ideologically charged practice of China girls, where young Caucasian women are filmed in a technical exercise to calibrate the colors of the camera. Can technology itself be racist?
Letter Home, 2015 (11′)
This chaotic mosaic of colors and impressionistic pixels accompanied by patches of concrete sounds, evokes van Dienderen’s trips to Japan. Its original material, recorded with a camcorder, is confused by algorithms. This poetic film invites the viewer to travel with the author on a sensory and painterly trip
Cherry Blossoms, 2012 (12′)
In this video-installation and short film, shot in a translation booth in one of the meeting halls
of the European parliament, translator Carly Wijs allows herself to be captivated by the temperament of Japanese youths. In this normed context, a passing humanity surfaces.
Patrasche, A Dog of Flanders, Made in Japan, 2008 (85′)
This film made with Didier Volckaert traces the imagination of Flanders based on a 19th century British novel through its enormous fan base in Japan, USA, and UK. While the Japanese animation series drew more than 30 million viewers per night and five Hollywood films were made, in Flanders nobody knows of the novel or its fans worldwide.
Prizes and Nominations
2023: Prize for Best Documentary at Black Star Festival, Ghana.
2023: Nominated for the Richard Werbner Award for Visual Anthropology RAI film festival (UK).
2022: Special Mention in the Thematic Competition at the 5th edition of Porto Femme International Film Festival.
2015: Nomination best short film award British Film Institute London Film Festival.
2013: Special Prize of the Jury at the International Short Film Competition “Monsieur Guillaume” at FIDOCS Chile.
2008: Nomination Grierson Innovation Award at the DocFest Sheffield.
2005 and 2006: Nomination Price best Belgian documentary.
2002 and 2003: Price best Belgian documentary.
1999: GNT Channel television Prize for Language Renewal – Brazil.
1999: Margaret Mead Film & video festival Award New York.
1995: Price of the public Canada, Montréal, 6°Evenement inter- universitaire de Création vidéo.