Johan Van Der Keuken - Biography

Biography

Van der Keuken was an extremely industrious man. His career spanned four decades, from 1955 until his death from prostate cancer in 2001. Even before graduating from the Institut des Hautes Études Cinématographiques (IDHEC, "Institute for Advanced Cinematographic Studies") film school in Paris (1956–1958), he had already published two books on photography and started to work on his first documentary film. In 1960 he joined Haagse Post, a Dutch newsmagazine, as a film critic but left the following year.

Based outside Amsterdam on Prinsenijland, he traveled the world, making films and taking pictures on many topics. Most of his work was produced for VPRO, a Dutch television station. Van der Keuken’s work is regarded by many as exceptional, and his premature death is seen as a real loss to the documentary filmmaking industry.

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