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Aliona van der Horst (born 1970) is a Dutch documentary filmmaker, cinematographer and editor.
| Aliona van der Horst | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1970 (age 54–55) |
| Nationality | Dutch |
| Education | University of Amsterdam – Master's in Russian Literature Dutch Film and TV Academy – Directing |
| Occupation(s) | Film director, cineast, documentary filmmaker, cinematographer, editor |
Aliona van der Horst was born to a Dutch father and a Russian mother and grew up in the Netherlands. She studied Russian literature at the University of Amsterdam (1988–1993) and completed documentary film directing at the Dutch Film and TV Academy (1993–1997). She holds a Master's degree in Russian Literature from the University of Amsterdam. During her studies, she worked as a Russian interpreter, which ultimately led her to pursue documentary direction at the Netherlands Film Academy. She graduated in 1997 with The Lady with the White Hat, which received critical acclaim.
She is known for her feature-length documentaries, including Gerlach (2023), Turn your body to the Sun (2021), Love is Potatoes (2017), Water children (2011), Boris Ryzhy (2008) and Voices of Bam (2006). Van der Horst is also known for her poetic and visually distinctive work, often focusing on art, culture, and personal histories.
Her films have been screened at internationally festivals such as IDFA (Amsterdam), Tribeca Film Festival (New York), True/False Festival (Columbia), Hot Docs (Toronto) CPH:Doc, (Copenhagen), Edinburgh Film Festival (Scotland), Artdocfest (Moscow) and Dok Leipzig (Germany). Her work is distributed theatrically and broadcast internattionally.
Aliona van der Horst had retrospectives of her films at Crossing Europe, Linz (2024), Docudays Kiev (2015), Beldocs international filmfestival (2017) and Filmacoteka de Catalunya (2013).
Van der Horst is a member of the documentary branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts an Sciences (AMPAS). She has taught as a guest tutor at IDFA Project Space Netherlands and International, DocNomads, and the Netherlands Film Academy, in addition to giving masterclasses at universities and film festivals. She is cofounder of DOCMAKERS, a collectively owned, all-female documentary production company
Dutch film critic and philosopher Dana Linsen (2024) has describes Van der Horst's films as essayistic and classically documentary, emerging from research and collaboration, and noted the use of artistic interventions tot explore absence and presence. [1] Filmcritic Nicole Sante highlighted Van de Horst's abality to intergrate image, sound, music, and dialogue in het storytelling, and her tendency to find bauty in unexpected places. [2]
Short Films
Feature films
| Shorts | Features |
|---|---|
| 1995 Memorabilia (10') | 2006 The Hermitage Dwellers (74') |
| 1997 The lady with the white hat (47') | 2006 Voices of Bam (90'), codirected with Maasja Ooms |
| 1998 Kiev: The dissident and the general (15') | 2011Water Children (73') |
| 1998 The little Red Box (20') | 2017Love is potatoes (90') |
| 2000 After the spring of '68, a story about love (58') | 2021Turn your body to the Sun (93') |
| 2003 A passion for the Hermitage (6x 25') | 2023Gerlach, the last farmer (74'), codirected with Luuk Bouwman |
| 2008 Boris Ryzhy (59') | |
| 2013 15 Attempts (50`) |
| Nationality | Dutch |
| Education | University of Amsterdam, Master Russian literature (1988–1993), Dutch Film and TV Academy, directing (1993–1997) |
| Occupation | Film director/ Cineast/ Documentary filmmaker/Cinematographer/Editor |