Pieter Moleveld

Biography

Pieter Moleveld received his film education at the Vrije Academie in The Hague. He was one of Frans Zwartjes’ many students. Moleveld’s first films were theatrical productions, with a great deal of pathos and engagement.

His later films can be described as ‘poetic documentaries’. He uses documentary images that have been removed from their context, which he then associatively assembles, and adds music to. By manipulating the lenses, the images take on a kind of surreal atmosphere, where the theatrical is still visible behind the frozen images.

In an interview with Petra van der Ree in the magazine De Filmkrant , Moleveld says about his films: ‘I’m looking for pure images, stripped of all human stain. I film a lot in nature; nature has something mystical, something innocent. Most of my films are about death anyway; I look for images of death, and for metaphors for it. Of course that’s impossible, since no one can have a picture of death when you’re still alive. And that imbues filmmaking with something extraordinarily unreal. I also look for images of death due to my fear of death. That first shot in Passages, a long pan along a country road: I think that’s what you see after death. It’s unknowable, but still you try to give it a shape. Trying to capture that fear in the form of images can offer solace’.

In 2004, Moleveld said farewell to the world of cinema with the film Lamento Emori Elegy. He was disappointed with the unfriendly environment for experimental film, with the eternal struggle for funding, and with the meagre response from audiences and critics.