NFF Extended: Expanded Cinema

Thank you for attending NFF Extended: Expanded Cinema

Would you like to attend similar events?

6 & 7 September - ‘Preprojecties’ - solo exposition Bram Ruiter, during Op Zwolsche Bodem festival, Zwolle
19 t/m 21 September – Back to the Future Festival, WORM Rotterdam
26 September t/m 3 October - het Nederlands Film Festival (kaartverkoop gaat 28 augustus van start):
- Friday 26 September – Storyspace Artist Talk
- Monday 29 & Tuesday 30 September - To Caress A Cloud - Een film-installatie van Jefta Varwijk
- Tuesday 30 September – NFF Focustalk: Rage AgAInst the Machine Learning
- Tuesday 30 September – NFF Focustalk: Presenting the Fellows and Nominees
- Wednesday 1 October – NFF Focustalk: Fearless Sounds in Game and Film
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5 October – Oostpact Filmtop, Focus Filmtheater Arnhem – Zaal 2
From 2026 onwards – Esker Film Society Nieuwe Buiten-Sociëteit, Zwolle - Zaal 3
Coming soon - Bewegend Beeldmakers Borrel, in De Achtergracht, Zwolle

The Netherlands has an enormous wealth of creators who work outside the established paths and make experimental, immersive and expanded work. But what does it mean today to be a maker of Expanded Cinema? How and where do we screen this work, which is often screened outside the regular circuit of film theaters? And how do we build a community of groundbreaking makers together? It is time to make this network visible and strengthen it further.

Meet the speakers

Bram Ruiter

Bram Ruiter makes films that focus on the creative act, domestic space, landscape and disappearance. His work is characterized by the use of found objects and unplanned moments, where chance encounters guide the creative process.

His films have been screened at festivals such as the Viennale, the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival and Mostra Internazionale del Nuovo Cinema (Pesaro Film Fest), the Dutch Film Festival and at the Van Gogh Museum, among others. A number of films are distributed by the Paris-based Collectif Jeune Cinema.

In addition to his artistic practice, he teaches film at ArtEZ University of the Arts and Emerson College and curates film programs such as the Esker Film Society.

Photo credit: Devan Scott

Esther Urlus

Esther Urlus is a Rotterdam-based artist working with the film formats Super8, 16mm and 35mm. Her films, performances and installations always arise from DIY methods. The processes and techniques she uses are based on reinventions of those of the pioneers of photo and cinematography. By editing and (re)inventing the material, she creates new work.

Urlus' work has been exhibited and shown at film festivals worldwide, including the 25FPS festival Zagreb, the Ann Arbor Film Festival, the Oberhausen Short Film Festival, Sonic Acts and the International Film Festival Rotterdam. Esther Urlus is also founder of the WORM.filmworkshop, a community lab for analog film.

Photo credit: hotglue

Jefta Varwijk

Jefta Varwijk makes Expanded Cinema and documentary films exploring the mechanisms of subjective experience. His work reflects on how our perceptions and personal experiences create a deep sense of the reality of the world around us. Thereby determining what we know and feel as reality. At the same time, that subjective experience is an unreliable gateway to truth.

By questioning and reconstructing the workings of experience itself, Varwijk explores with great curiosity what that truth of our inner and outer worlds might be. His work, located at the intersection of film, documentary and visual art, provides the canvas for this quest. For him, film is not just a medium, but a feeling, an experience and a way of perceiving.

Photo credit: Reinier Huisman.

Sandy Seifert
Moderator

Sandy Seifert is a programme maker, curator and moderator. As a freelancer, she works for several film festivals, is a programme maker and editor at Stichting Vrouwen in Beeld and occasionally performs in theatre.