Dutch journalist and documentary filmmaker Bregtje van der Haak – long associated with Dutch broadcaster VPRO as a programme maker, editor of the Tegenlicht programme and its overall editor-in-chief – has been appointed as new Eye Filmmuseum director by the organisation’s supervisory board. She will succeed the current director Sandra den Hamer on 1 April 2023.
“The new director looks forward to leading a contemporary museum for cinema with a world-class collection that provides a unique opportunity to connect past, present and future as well as to question the world in transition around us on the basis of images, and to discuss film’s role in digital image culture,” Eye says in a press release dated December 7.
“Sandra den Hamer leaves a museum that, since ‘crossing the IJ River’ in 2012, has undergone massive development,” the Eye statement continues. “Over the past 15 years, Eye Filmmuseum has transformed into a bustling centre for film culture and a museum with international allure.”
“Bregtje van der Haak will continue to further the museum’s ‘kaleidoscopic assignment’ to be a meeting place that showcases film in all its guises and provides context, from the earliest films to the most contemporary developments, and from meticulously restored classics to the latest digital experiments as well as exhibitions on contemporary artists and filmmakers,” the statement adds.
Van der Haak studied dance in Paris, law and politology in Amsterdam and political theory and journalism in New York. She was a member of the board of the Prins Claus Fonds [arts and culture NGO] and the Erasmusprijs [a prize for the humanities, social sciences and the arts], and a member of the travelling biennial Manifesta X in Palermo’s artistic team. Van der Haak also sits on the IDFA [International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam] and the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten [state academy of fine arts] supervisory boards.
As editor-in-chief for VPRO Television (2006/2007 with Frank Wiering) she initiated programmes that included Metropolis TV, xi and the 3D archive on urbanisation T_visonarium OPEN CITY (with Jeffrey Shaw). Van der Haak has been a visiting professor at the City University of Hong Kong and at USC in Los Angeles. In 2005, she made one of the first interactive documentaries, Lagos Wide & Close (with Silke Wawro, Rem Koolhaas & The Harvard Project on the City). During the economic crisis she reported on its societal consequences for sociologist Manuel Castells’ Aftermath Network. Until 2022, Van der Haak worked as a director and editor-in-chief for the TV programme VPRO Tegenlicht, where she recently presented the innovative project Archief van de Toekomst [archive of the future].
Lex ter Braak, (interim) chair of Eye Filmmuseum’s supervisory board commented: “The supervisory board has found its dream candidate in the shape of Bregtje van der Haak. With her knowledge of film and new media, and her educated convictions concerning the collection’s importance and societal impact, Bregtje van der Haak will create new options for Eye and its audience. She will intensify the dynamic between the museum and society, creating an urgent programme around it. Bregtje van der Haak will make Eye a multi-coloured prism, a place for everyone.”
Incoming Van der Haak commented: “Under Sandra den Hamer, Eye became a fabulous public institute, an essential meeting place for everyone who thinks and dreams in images. I am very enthusiastic about the opportunity to further her work, co-operating with a team of excellent professionals who highlight film culture at every level with passion and dedication. In my dreams I see Eye, the oyster on the IJ River, further opening itself to the world like a ‘brave space’ where cinema reveals itself in many ways and everyone feels welcome to enter into dialogue with the collection and the international film community: jointly arriving at a highly personal, yet shared diagnosis of our times.”
