Costa, In love with Ibiza in The Legs of Saint Hildegard: Johan Nijenhuis has been an integral part of the film world for years. Yet the director still feels that he has to defend himself. His films are often criticized in reviews, but the general public keeps coming.
In conversation with AD Nijenhuis says he fights for the rom-com genre because he loves it. “The feeling that I always have to defend myself a bit is because from the artistic angle the attack on the public film can be heard more often than the other way around.”
For that reason, the filmmaker remains a member of the Dutch Academy: he wants to continue the conversation with other makers. “Take the Dutch Film Festival, which is such a beautiful showcase. But we must continue to make an effort to involve the average cinema visitors. Otherwise, the interest will disappear. So much money is always going to, I don’t think that’s fair.”
In recent years, Nijenhuis has started making slightly different films. “I used to make quite noisy films, I sometimes wanted to gallop through. Now I am less inclined to fill in everything for the viewer, who can sometimes think for themselves about what is going on in the characters.”
The 54-year-old Nijenhuis has been in the business for over twenty years and hopes that he has become a better maker in that time. “The most important thing is that you go with the times. The bumps in a rom-com story need to be more contemporary. Simple stories like: handsome boy nicely decorates girl after losing a bet, that is really no longer possible in this day and age.”
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