Eddy van der Enden

Biography

Eddy van der Enden was a multifaceted cameraman who made feature films and documentaries. He was instrumental to the first successful post-WWII Dutch films, particularly as the cameraman for Bert Haanstra.

In the 1950s he went to work for Profilti-Polygoon, where he learned much from the experienced cameraman Akos Farkas. For two years he honed his camera skills at the renowned film school Centro Sperimentale in Rome. Starting in 1954 he worked on the American spy series made for television called 'Secret File USA', which director Arthur Dreifuss recorded in the Netherlands.

In 1958, Van der Enden was involved in the feature films Fanfare by Bert Haanstra and Dorp aan de rivier by Fons Rademakers. In the same year, he also worked on Haanstra's short colour film, Glas. This film was a major challenge because at that time, colour film was still in the experimental phase in the Netherlands.

Van der Enden was also appreciated by many others besides Haanstra, and worked with a number of filmmakers including Louis van Gasteren on Het huis, Jan Vrijman on De werkelijkheid van Karel Appel and George Sluizer, with whom he made the short film De lage landen. Around 1960, Dutch films were receiving many international prizes, and Van der Enden made his mark on most of them. In the 1970s, Van der Enden worked with Rademakers again (including on Because of the Cats in 1973). In 1975 he was honoured in The Hague with a major retrospective.