Adriaan Ditvoorst

Biography

Adriaan Ditvoorst was a Dutch filmmaker. He belonged to the first generation of the Netherlands Film Academy students. Just as other directors from the 'first wave', including Wim Verstappen and Frans Weisz, Ditvoorst felt strongly drawn to the ideas of the nouvelle vague filmmakers such as Jean-Luc Godard, Claude Chabrol and François Truffaut.

Ditvoorst debuted in 1965 with the short Ik kom wat later naar Madra. The film was praised for its defiant imagery and sound editing. For his feature film debut Paranoia, Ditvoorst used W.F. Herman's eponymous novella as his point of departure. As in the book, the film is about a man with delusions of persecution. Insanity is a recurring theme in Ditvoorst's oeuvre. One example of this is the film De blinde fotograaf (1973), an absurdist story, situated in an alienating and beautifully lit environment. Ditvoorst's dark, unusual stories were never really successful with a wide audience. Critics were generally positive about the aesthetic qualities of Ditvoorst's films and his directing talent.