the makers of the film

Pieter-Rim and Maarten de Kroon describe Dutch Light as being purely about light and observation. ‘While researching the project we realised that the film was mainly about a certain way of looking. When Joseph Beuys said that the only faculty the Dutch possessed was the sense of sight, and that land reclamation in the Zuyder Zee brought an end to Holland’s unique visual culture of the 17th century – then it’s all about observation. Beuys’s formulation may have been hyperbolic, but it contains more than a grain of truth.’

The film is an ode as well as a journey of exploration. An ode to observation, to Dutch light, and to painting. It captures light on film the way an artist captures images on canvas. The camera lingers and returns, day after day, to the same point on the Zuyder Zee. It observes – and we observe with it.