Jan Dorresteijn

Biography

Jan Dorrestijn learned to make films with an old camera from his father and won a number of prizes as an amateur filmmaker at small-gauge film festivals. To make his feature debut, Fantasy in fiction, he borrowed 25,000 guilders. The film ran for one week in Amsterdam and brought in 526 guilders. It took Dorrestijn years to repay the loan. The film deserved to flop, according to Dorresteijn: the screenplay was no good and he'd relied too heavily on well-intentioned amateurs. Dorresteijn next bought the film rights to Toon Kortooms' film Help! de dokter verzuipt but didn't dare to make the film himself. He decided to hand over the directing to Nikolai van der Heyde and produced it instead. These two made another film together in 1975, De dwaze lotgevallen van Sherlock Jones. In 1978, Dorrestijn ventured directing his second feature film, Nacht zonder zegen, which was adapted from a story by Jan Fabricius. Dorresteijn only allowed five people to act in the film, in order to keep costs as low as possible.