Rotterdam Films Rijneke & van Leeuwaarden.

Rotterdam Films is an independent production company founded by Dirk Rijneke and Mildred van Leeuwaarden. It produced and co-produced more than 45 documentaries and fiction films mainly for cinematic release. They worked with directors from all over the world such as Béla Tarr, Krzysztof Kieslowski, Carlos Reichenbach and Mrinal Sen. Their core-business is to support directors; emerging talent as well experienced filmmakers, whose perspective and approach don’t result in a middle-of-the-road film, but will be a proof of original and interesting auteur cinema intended for an international audience.
Their films were selected for numerous film festivals worldwide such as Berlin,
Rotterdam, Toronto, Venice, Cannes, Locarno, Sarajevo, Tallinn, Hong Kong, New Delhi, Sao Paulo, Montréal, Chicago, Seattle, New York.

Producer, film maker and cinematographer Dirk Rijneke studied with famous experimental underground film maker Frans Zwartjes at the Vrije Academy in the seventies.
Mildred van Leeuwaarden, producer and film maker studied at the Willem de Koning Academy in Rotterdam.
They directed and produced several films like the punk films Pinkel, Greetings From Rotterdam, Brugwachter, Bridges, all of which have been screened at the worldwide festival circuit.
With their award-winning film Voro-Nova (1985) they provided the opening film for the Rotterdam Film Festival, their first feature film as co-directors. It was also selected for the Toronto (TIFF) Film Festival.

Voro-Nova was the favorite of Rotterdam festival founder Hubert Bals. After his untimely death their production City Life, the international episode film, had again the honor to open the (IFFR) festival of Rotterdam in 1990. In the same year it was selected as closing film for the Young Forum of the Berlinale.
They initiated, created, and produced this four-hour international anthology film City Life., which consists of twelve episodes. Together they form a visual anthology of international short stories by various directors, including Krzysztof Kieślowski, Béla Tarr, Mrinal Sen and Carlos Reichenbach. City Life was awarded in the USA, Russia and the UK.

As producers, Dirk and Mildred have built an impressive track record with numerous films to their credit. Silent Ones, Ricky Rijneke’s first feature had its world premiere as nominee for the Tiger Award of the Rotterdam Film Festival before it ran the festival circuit and won eleven awards out of fifteen nominations among others Best Director, three times Best Film and three times Best Cinematography.

Rijneke & van Leeuwaarden are also the co-producers of the Icelandic-Dutch production Reykjavik-Rotterdam, an award-winning thriller, which won seven Edda’s, the most prominent Icelandic film award. A Hollywood remake was made of this film, US box office hit number one, titled Contraband starring Mark Wahlberg. They have also coproduced films like Hier (Yesterday), first feature by Hungarian film maker Balint Kenyeres, a Hungarian, Dutch, French, German, Moroccan coproduction. Hier had its world premiere at the Locarno Film Festival. A Letter From Helga by Ása Helga Hjörleifsdottir is an Icelandic, Dutch, Estonian coproduction, which premiered at the Tallinn Black Night Film Festival and was screened at numerous festivals.

In the works is All Is Hidden second feature from Ricky Rijneke and the 4k restoration of Béla Tarr’s film The Last Boat and Krzysztof Kieślowski’s Seven Days A Week.
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