Docmakers
Ilja Roomans
Tolhuisweg 2 | 1031 CL Amsterdam
ilja@docmakers.nl | +31 6 48233390
Company website
Docmakers is a collective of documentary filmmakers consisting of Aliona van der Horst (director), Fabie Hulsebos (writer), Suzanne Raes (director), Ilja Roomans (producer), Sanne Rovers (director), and Yan Ting Yuen (director and writer). We love films that need a long run, as well as unexpected special or urgent initiatives that require a flexible approach. In addition to productions by Docmakers directors, we also produce films from external directors and take part in international co-productions. Producer Ilja Roomans has over 20 years of experience producing both Dutch productions and international co-productions, she is an EAVE graduate and a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences.
CURRENT PROJECTS
THE PROPAGANDIST
Director: Luuk Bouwman. Script: Luuk Bouwman & Rik Binnendijk. Country: NL. Status: In Production. Release: 2025. Sort: feature length documentary. Duration: 111 min. Genre: History, Politics, Art.
Using previously unpublished interviews, family films and propaganda films, ‘The Propagandist’ tells the story of the rise and fall of Dutch filmmaker Jan Teunissen (1898-1975). As head of the Department of Film of the Dutch Nazi Party and SS, he became the most powerful man in the Dutch film industry during World War II. Teunissen, nicknamed the ‘Film King’ and the ‘Dutch Leni Riefenstahl’ was a well- known filmmaker before the war. What drove him to become part of the Nazi regime? The Propagandist questions the boundaries between documentary and propaganda and the role of propagandists - how they spread images, narratives, misinformation and ideology. A documentary about boundless ambition and the manipulative power of film.
WHERE DRAGONS LIVE
Director: Suzanne Raes. Script writer: Suzanne Raes. Country: NL & United Kingdom. Status: completed. Release: Sheffield DocFest 2024, IDFA 2024. Sort: feature length documentary. Duration: ±85 min. Genre: Human Interest. World Sales: Film Harbour/Liselot Verbrugge.
When you are afraid of the dark, scared of monsters, and trying to be brave enough to face them, you’d better invent a story. For Harriet and her three older brothers, growing up ‘among dragons’ at Cumnor Place was a life of enchanted gardens, Arthurian legends and things that go bump in the night. Theirs was a rarified, story-book childhood that stoked their wildest imagination and greatest fears in equal measure. Now adults and with both of their parents deceased, where they once played make believe and slayed dragons, the siblings must come together to clear out the family estate so it’s ready for sale - and in the process, come to terms with who they are, given their unorthodox and at times traumatic upbringing.
GERLACH, THE LAST FARMER
Director: Aliona van der Horst & Luuk Bouwman. Script writer: Aliona van der Horst & Luuk Bouwman. Country: NL. Status: Completed. Release: 2023. Sort: feature length documentary. Duration: ±77 min. Genre: Human Interest. World Sales: Syndicado Film Sales.
Winner of the IDFA 2023 Best Dutch Film Award.
‘Gerlach’ is a loving and humorous portrait of arable farmer Gerlach, who has been farming under the smoke of Schiphol Airport for sixty years. Around him, he has seen everything change. His simple wooden house is now wedged in by a Shell, a McDonalds and distribution centers. With great dedication he cares for his beets and grain, while property developers prey on his land and climate change disrupts his harvest. Despite everything that comes his way, Gerlach stands tall with his relatable humor, helped by his loving brothers and friends. His cottage is the raindrop in which the world is reflected, existentialist and absurdist.
CLOSE TO VERMEER
Director: Suzanne Raes. Script writer: Suzanne Raes. Country: NL. Status: Completed. Release: 2023. Sort: feature length documentary. Duration: ±75 min. Genre: Art. World Sales: Film Harbour/Liselot Verbrugge.
Winner of the Special Jury Prize Guangzhou International Documentary Film Festival 2023.
In the run-up to the largest Vermeer exhibition ever, a number of Vermeer curators and experts set out in search of what makes a Vermeer truly Vermeer. This fascinating documentary shows everything from the quiet diplomacy required to get the Vermeers to the Netherlands and the new knowledge gained by scanning the paintings layer by layer, to the shocking world news that one work may not be by Vermeer after all. Slowly we discover how Vermeer was able to depict reality so differently from his contemporaries.
Trailer
MASTER OF LIGHT
Director: Rosa Ruth Boesten. Producers: Roger Ross Williams, Anousha Nzume, Ilja Roomans Country: USA (One Story Up) & NL. Status: completed. Release: World Premiere at SXSW 2022. Duration: 83 min. Genre: Social Issues/Art. Global release HBO Max.
Multiple Award winning film, a.o. SXSW 2022 Best Documentary Feature Award, Cinema Doc Eye Spotlight Award 2023, 3 Emmy nominations (best director, best camera, best editing).
Through art, George Anthony Morton heals the traumas of his childhood. By painting his family members in the style of the old Dutch Masters, he finds a way towards the light for his family and himself.
Trailer
