Rene Daalder

Biography

Dutch film director. Together with his fellow film academy students Frans Bromet, Rem Koolhaas, Samuel Meyering and Jan de Bont, Daalder was responsible for the cheerful and, in its time, scandalous film De 1,2,3 rhapsodie. The filmmakers were rebelling against tradition as well as against the nouvelle vague that was wildly popular at the time.

For Daalder, this drive to move ahead was characteristic for his career: after the well-received films Body and Soul I & II and De blanke slavin, he left, first for London and Paris and then, in 1973, he emigrated to the United States. There he started out as a protégé of the cult filmmaker Russ Meyer and made his American directorial debut with Massacre at Central High (1976). After that he developed a preference for science fiction with his films Population One (1986), Second Chance (1987) and Habitat (1997). Many of his other projects also have a futuristic streak.

In 2008, however, he turned to the past and made Here Is Always Somewhere Else, about the life and work of artist and experimental filmmaker Bas-Jan Ader (1942-1975).