Martin Koolhoven

Martin Koolhoven began his career by directing small, stylized films and has since become one of Dutch cinema's most successful screenwriters and directors. After graduating from film school in 1996, Koolhoven gained notice for his debut film "Duister licht," a made-for-television thriller about a burglar who breaks into a farmhouse and has an unlucky meeting with the ultra-religious owner. Many of his early films focus on the psychological struggle between children and their parents; "Suzy Q," his first film after "Duister licht," won numerous awards for its depiction of one bizarre weekend in the life of a suburban family and launched the career of frequent collaborator Carice van Houten; while the black comedy "Amnesia" explores the twisted dynamic between a creatively blocked photographer and his dying mother. After adapting author Tim Krabbe's drug trade novel "De grot" and filming the surreal thriller "South," Koolhoven enjoyed a rare mainstream success with "Schnitzel Paradise," a romantic comedy centered on a Dutch-Morrocan hotel cook's attempts to win the love of his boss' niece. After releasing several family comedies, in 2008 Koolhoven returned to his dramatic roots with the award-winning "Winter in Wartime," based on Jan Terlouw's World War II novel about a Dutch boy torn between his resistance-fighter uncle and German-collaborator father.