Willy Lindwer
Encyclopedia
Wolf "Willy" Lindwer is a Dutch
documentary
filmmaker.
, Netherlands, where he studied at the Netherlands Film and Television Academy
. When Lindwer finished his study, he worked for several Dutch Public TV stations. In 1985 he established his own company, AVA-Productions, in which he has made most of his films.
He is best known for his films on the Holocaust, Israel and the Middle East, Judaism and Christianity, but has experience in a wide area of documentary filmmaking.
In 1988 he won the International Emmy Award for his film The Last Seven Months of Anne Frank
. This film contains the testimonies of seven women who were witness to the last months of Anne Frank
's life in the Nazi concentration camps
, including Hanneli Goslar
, a former neighbor of the Franks; Bloeme Evers-Emden
, a classmate of Margot
; and Janny Brilleslijper who buried her in Bergen-Belsen
.
On 29 April 2010 he was bestowed with the Dutch order Officer in the Order of Orange-Nassau
by Her Majesty the Queen of the Netherlands in recognition of his work for the Netherlands.
Willy Lindwer has also published several books, some of which are based on the films he has made. His most famous work as an author is also The Last Seven Months of Anne Frank, translated into English by Alison Meersschaert.
Willy Lindwer has been a documentary filmmaker, producer and scriptwriter since graduating the Netherlands Film Academy in Amsterdam in 1971. For many years he was on the program staff of Dutch Public TV. He founded his company AVA Productions in 1985 in the Netherlands. Currently, he heads also an Israeli corporation, Terra Film Productions in Jerusalem. His companies are dedicated to the development and production of international documentaries and co-productions for television high quality. Willy Lindwer's documentaries are distributed world wide, including Europe and the US. Willy Lindwer was born in Amsterdam, the Netherlands in 1946. His parents fled anti-Semitic Poland and Ukraine in the 1930s and settled in Amsterdam. They were among the 10% of Jews in Holland who survived the Holocaust. Driven by a passion for oral history and his interest in exploring human hardships, he has travelled extensively around the globe, producing highly acclaimed series of documentaries about Europe, Africa and the Far East.
Willy Lindwer’s major breakthrough came in 1988, when he was awarded the highest TV award, the International Emmy Award
for his documentary The Last Seven Months of Anne Frank. In 1993 het won 'the Dutch State Award for Filmmaking, the Grand Prix of the Dutch Film Industry' in the category 'best documentary' for another major Holocaust documentary: Child in Two Worlds, the story of Jewish war orphans.
Willy Lindwer has earned worldwide recognition with his series of documentaries about the Holocaust, Israel, the Middle East and the Arts. Willy Lindwer also produced the highly acclaimed documentary, The Lonely Struggle: Marek Edelman, Last Hero of the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. According to the many flattering press reviews and reactions, the Dutch audience was equally impressed by his 1990 film and book Camp of Hope and Despair, Witnesses of Westerbork, 1939-1945. Willy Lindwer's film Simon Wiesenthal: Freedom is Not a Gift from Heaven was the Dutch Nominee for the International Emmy Award for Best Documentary, 1994. And a one hour documentary about the life of Teddy Kollek. His feature-length film Yitzhak Rabin: Warrior-Peacemaker, was in 1998 awarded the 'Finalist Prize' at the New York Film and Television Festival. His film Goodbye, Holland (2004) was shown in three successive years on Israeli TV.
Anna’s Silent Struggle (2009)
Mr. Israel, The Shimon Peres Story (2008)
Africa goes Digital (2006)
Goodbye Holland, the destruction of Dutch Jewry (2004)
The Temple Mount is Mine, two part documentary (2003)
Messengers Without an Audience, with Jan Karski (2002)
D’vekut: Hasidism and Jewish Mysticism in Israel, a Personal Journey’ (2000)
Stuart Eizentat: The Nazi Gold Reports (1998)
Yitzhak Rabin: Warrior-Peacemaker (1998)
The Return, three-part series about 100 Years Zionism and 50 years Israel (1998).
Jerusalem: Between Heaven and Earth, a three-part series (1995)
The Fatal Dilemma, The Jewish Council of Amsterdam (1995)
Simon Wiesenthal: Freedom is Not a Gift from Heaven’ (1994)
Teddy Kollek: From Vienna to Jerusalem’ (1993)
Child in Two Worlds (1993)
Return to my Shtetl Delatyn, about Willy Lindwer’s father Berl Nuchim (1992)
The Wannsee Conference (1992)
Married with a Star, a Jewish Wedding in Amsterdam in 1942 (1991)
Westerbork: ‘Camp of Hope and Despair (1990)
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
documentary
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
filmmaker.
Biography
Willy Lindwer was born in AmsterdamAmsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
, Netherlands, where he studied at the Netherlands Film and Television Academy
Netherlands Film and Television Academy
The Netherlands Film and Television Academy was founded in 1958.The academy is the only recognised institute in the Netherlands that offers training to prepare for the work in the various crew disciplines...
. When Lindwer finished his study, he worked for several Dutch Public TV stations. In 1985 he established his own company, AVA-Productions, in which he has made most of his films.
He is best known for his films on the Holocaust, Israel and the Middle East, Judaism and Christianity, but has experience in a wide area of documentary filmmaking.
In 1988 he won the International Emmy Award for his film The Last Seven Months of Anne Frank
Laatste Zeven Maanden van Anne Frank (TV documentary)
Laaste Zeven Maanden van Anne Frank is a 1988 Dutch television documentary directed by Willy Lindwer about the last seven months of diarist Anne Frank...
. This film contains the testimonies of seven women who were witness to the last months of Anne Frank
Anne Frank
Annelies Marie "Anne" Frank is one of the most renowned and most discussed Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Acknowledged for the quality of her writing, her diary has become one of the world's most widely read books, and has been the basis for several plays and films.Born in the city of Frankfurt...
's life in the Nazi concentration camps
Nazi concentration camps
Nazi Germany maintained concentration camps throughout the territories it controlled. The first Nazi concentration camps set up in Germany were greatly expanded after the Reichstag fire of 1933, and were intended to hold political prisoners and opponents of the regime...
, including Hanneli Goslar
Hanneli Goslar
Hannah 'Hanneli' Elisabeth Goslar is best known for her friendship with diarist Anne Frank. Both Hannah and Anne attended the Sixth Public Montessori School in Amsterdam and then the Jewish Lyceum....
, a former neighbor of the Franks; Bloeme Evers-Emden
Bloeme Evers-Emden
Bloeme Evers-Emden is a Dutch Jewish teacher and child psychologist who extensively researched the phenomenon of "hidden children" during World War II and wrote four books on the subject in the 1990s...
, a classmate of Margot
Margot Frank
Margot Betti Frank was the older sister of Anne Frank, whose deportation order from the Gestapo hastened the Frank family into hiding, and who subsequently perished in Bergen-Belsen...
; and Janny Brilleslijper who buried her in Bergen-Belsen
Bergen-Belsen concentration camp
Bergen-Belsen was a Nazi concentration camp in Lower Saxony in northwestern Germany, southwest of the town of Bergen near Celle...
.
On 29 April 2010 he was bestowed with the Dutch order Officer in the Order of Orange-Nassau
Order of Orange-Nassau
The Order of Orange-Nassau is a military and civil order of the Netherlands which was created on 4 April 1892 by the Queen regent Emma of the Netherlands, acting on behalf of her under-age daughter Queen Wilhelmina. The Order is a chivalry order open to "everyone who have earned special merits for...
by Her Majesty the Queen of the Netherlands in recognition of his work for the Netherlands.
Willy Lindwer has also published several books, some of which are based on the films he has made. His most famous work as an author is also The Last Seven Months of Anne Frank, translated into English by Alison Meersschaert.
Willy Lindwer has been a documentary filmmaker, producer and scriptwriter since graduating the Netherlands Film Academy in Amsterdam in 1971. For many years he was on the program staff of Dutch Public TV. He founded his company AVA Productions in 1985 in the Netherlands. Currently, he heads also an Israeli corporation, Terra Film Productions in Jerusalem. His companies are dedicated to the development and production of international documentaries and co-productions for television high quality. Willy Lindwer's documentaries are distributed world wide, including Europe and the US. Willy Lindwer was born in Amsterdam, the Netherlands in 1946. His parents fled anti-Semitic Poland and Ukraine in the 1930s and settled in Amsterdam. They were among the 10% of Jews in Holland who survived the Holocaust. Driven by a passion for oral history and his interest in exploring human hardships, he has travelled extensively around the globe, producing highly acclaimed series of documentaries about Europe, Africa and the Far East.
Willy Lindwer’s major breakthrough came in 1988, when he was awarded the highest TV award, the International Emmy Award
Emmy Award
An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...
for his documentary The Last Seven Months of Anne Frank. In 1993 het won 'the Dutch State Award for Filmmaking, the Grand Prix of the Dutch Film Industry' in the category 'best documentary' for another major Holocaust documentary: Child in Two Worlds, the story of Jewish war orphans.
Willy Lindwer has earned worldwide recognition with his series of documentaries about the Holocaust, Israel, the Middle East and the Arts. Willy Lindwer also produced the highly acclaimed documentary, The Lonely Struggle: Marek Edelman, Last Hero of the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. According to the many flattering press reviews and reactions, the Dutch audience was equally impressed by his 1990 film and book Camp of Hope and Despair, Witnesses of Westerbork, 1939-1945. Willy Lindwer's film Simon Wiesenthal: Freedom is Not a Gift from Heaven was the Dutch Nominee for the International Emmy Award for Best Documentary, 1994. And a one hour documentary about the life of Teddy Kollek. His feature-length film Yitzhak Rabin: Warrior-Peacemaker, was in 1998 awarded the 'Finalist Prize' at the New York Film and Television Festival. His film Goodbye, Holland (2004) was shown in three successive years on Israeli TV.
Filmography
Some titles of his films:Anna’s Silent Struggle (2009)
Mr. Israel, The Shimon Peres Story (2008)
Africa goes Digital (2006)
Goodbye Holland, the destruction of Dutch Jewry (2004)
The Temple Mount is Mine, two part documentary (2003)
Messengers Without an Audience, with Jan Karski (2002)
D’vekut: Hasidism and Jewish Mysticism in Israel, a Personal Journey’ (2000)
Stuart Eizentat: The Nazi Gold Reports (1998)
Yitzhak Rabin: Warrior-Peacemaker (1998)
The Return, three-part series about 100 Years Zionism and 50 years Israel (1998).
Jerusalem: Between Heaven and Earth, a three-part series (1995)
The Fatal Dilemma, The Jewish Council of Amsterdam (1995)
Simon Wiesenthal: Freedom is Not a Gift from Heaven’ (1994)
Teddy Kollek: From Vienna to Jerusalem’ (1993)
Child in Two Worlds (1993)
Return to my Shtetl Delatyn, about Willy Lindwer’s father Berl Nuchim (1992)
The Wannsee Conference (1992)
Married with a Star, a Jewish Wedding in Amsterdam in 1942 (1991)
Westerbork: ‘Camp of Hope and Despair (1990)