Moving Stills

Zwartjes' reflections on Beckett, situated between trees.

Set on the landing and the stairs of Zwartjes’ new house, then still empty, in The Hague. The filmmaker suggests a mysterious and complex space by using a ‘floating’ camera to film a number of crawling, creeping personages. (MUBI)

Frans Zwartjes' two visions of womanhood in Behind Your Walls have all the febrile frustration associated with his previous work. Flesh looks like crisp paper about to be despoiled, a torpid heat reduces movement to fidgets and hesitations. - MIFF

Frans Zwartjes' adaptation of Euripides' tragedy, originally produced for stage by the actresses Josée Ruiter and Çanci Geraerdts.

Observations of a woman with a Japanese mask dressed in a large painted robe. She moves along the ground amid a (photographed or painted) backdrop of trees and a Japanese window. In the beginning, she is restless and her movements occasionally reveal her naked body beneath the robe. After a climax, also in the music, she is quiet and introverted.

A selection of never-before-seen cinema sketches by Zwartjes, compiled by Stanley Schtinter with music from Zwartjes' record Tapes I.

Two girls nestle beside each other on a couch and try desperately to conceal their mutual craving. Sexuality is suggested through the weird rhythm of the film's editing and the tactile quality of the images. - MIFF

A man in drag reaches for some sorbet and then eats it.

This film is dominated by an icy blue. In a monumental building a group of scientists submit women to obscure experiments, in which sexuality and cruelty constantly merge into one another. When the film was released, this horrifying game of power and powerlessness was condemned severely by a militant group of feminists. The criticism was undeserved. After all, 'Pentimento' is an art-historical term for a hidden image underneath the actual image giving an indication of how the latter evolved to its current state. The film does not endorse the lopsided power relations in our world but actually challenges them.

A woman plays with a bird as the camera's gaze is drawn to her legs.

Strip Show 1850 (11 min.) is a remarkably detailed yet simple film on Zeeland’s magnificent traditional costumes, which are removed layer by layer. This short costume drama gives new meaning to the museum film genre. Strip Show 1850 is part of a series of museum films specially produced by Paul and Menno de Nooijer for the reopening of the Zeeland Museum.

Short film about two men in a car

1981 short film by Paul de Nooijer and Jerry King Musser

1984 short by Paul de Nooijer

Stop motion

First of three versions of Transformation by Holding Time, films with the duration of one film reel in which the screen is gradually filled with Polaroids, made in one shot from one angle, without editing. In this version, the film camera registers the filmmaker who is on a moor taking Polaroid pictures of the film camera.

1981 short film by Paul de Nooijer and Jerry King Musser

It’s always party time with the De Nooijer family at home. Innocent pleasure or a political film?

1992 short by Paul de Nooijer