On April 23, the World Press Photo Award was presented to Australian photographer Warren Richardson. What defines such an award-winning photographer? In the following on-demand documentaries, filmmakers seek to understand leading photographers such as Vivian Maier and Elmar van der Marel.
Finding Vivian Maier (AVROTROS, John Maloof and Charlie Siskel)
Vivian Maier worked as a nanny for wealthy families in Chicago during the nineteen fifties and sixties. Her real interest, however, was photography, and over those years she used her Rolleiflex to make about one hundred thousand photographs of street life in America. These photographs were entirely unknown to the public, which makes the story so remarkable: after her death in 2009, Maier’s archive was discovered at an auction, and her reputation and name grew rapidly. She is now regarded as an important photographer whose body of work can stand alongside that of other street photographers such as Helen Levitt and Robert Frank. In Finding Vivian Maier her remarkable story is presented and reconstructed.
Image Hunters (NCRV, Wilko Bello)
Press photographers play a major role in shaping our view of reality. Their images of world leaders and asylum seekers regularly appear on the front pages of Dutch newspapers and websites. Press photographer Elmar van der Marel won a Silver Camera award three times and is followed in Image Hunters along with his renowned colleague Serge Ligtenberg. How are award-winning photographs made?
Foto-Eddy (NTR, David de Jongh)
The documentary Foto-Eddy was highly acclaimed at IDFA 2013 and focuses on the photographer of the same name, Eddy de Jongh (1920–2002). He became known in the seventies and eighties for his unvarnished portraits of prominent Dutch figures. Vrij Nederland published his ‘heads’ alongside Bibeb’s interviews, and the NOS Journaal displayed his portraits behind the newsreader. When Eddy de Jongh dies, director David de Jongh believes he knows his father’s most important peculiarities. Reality proves very different. In Foto-Eddy, he embarks on a personal search, and a richly illustrated chronicle of the postwar Netherlands unfolds the story of a survivor who managed to persevere through photography.
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