CLARA VAN GOOL – Biography  

Director & scriptwriter Clara van Gool is based in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. She graduated from the Dutch Film & Television Academy in 1985 and worked as assistant director and script/continuity for Dutch tv-drama productions and feature films for several years.   Van Gool’s films thrive on the border between fiction and a form that is usually described as ‘dance-film’. Reservaat (1988, nominated Golden Calf best short film at the Dutch Film Festival 1989 and the Dutch submission for the Oscars of that year) Courzand (1993), Bitings & other Effects (1995, Golden Calf for the best short film, Nederlands Film Festival), Exit (1996) and Reimerswaal (2004) are highly visual stories that are expressed through movement, dance, mise-en-scène and montage.   Her work includes successful adaptations of dance performances for the screen: Enter Achilles (1996), by the renowned English group DV8 Physical Theatre won a.o. the International Emmy Award of Performing Arts (New York 1997) followed by the award winning Nussin (1998, Golden Calf for the best short film at the Nederlands Film Festival, Fipa d’Argent, Biarritz 1999, Prix de la creation de l’office national du film Canada, Montreal 1999), Lucky (2001), Up at Down (2003) and Coup de Grace (2011 Award best short Noves Visions Curts, Sitges Film Festival, Best Screen Choreography, Cinedans Amsterdam).   She experimented with different narrative techniques in fiction without dialogue: One False Move, (2011) Between 2 Houses (2006), Passing Future (2001); in documentary: Zikr (1999, Best documentary IMZ Dance Screen Monaco 2000 and Mediawave Budapest 2001), in video installation: Little Sister (2010) and two commercials for the Dutch luxury department store De Bijenkorf (2012 and 2013). In Voices of Finance (2015, Main Award, Zeichen der Nacht, Berlin January 2017, Prix de Signes, Festival International Signes de Nuit Paris, 2016 ), she explored the use of movement ànd text in a “docudance” based on the Banking Blogs by Joris Luyendijk. Her unique style has emerged in the feature The Beast in the Jungle (2019), an adaptation of the novella by Henry James.   Clara van Gool writes her own scripts and has collaborated with choreographers (a.o.) Angelika Oei, Jordi Cortes Molina, Lloyd Newson, Suzy Blok, Nanine Linning, Kim Brandstrup and Medhi Walerski.   In 2017 she received the Honorary Award at the International Dance Film Festival Choreoscope in Barcelona for “genuine impact on dance film inparticular, screendance in general, but also on film and dance history”.

CLARA VAN GOOL – Filmography  

2018 The Beast In The Jungle

2015 Voices of Finance

2011 One False Move

2011 Coup de Grace

2006 Between 2 Houses

2004 Reimerswaal

2003 Up at Down

2001 Passing Future – 3 solos

2001 Lucky

1999 ZIKR

1998 Nussin

1996 Exit

1996 Enter Achilles

1995 Bitings and Other Effects

1993 Courzand

1988 Reservaat

1985 “I shall move north, I shall move into a long polar night...”