Davai! The Russians and Their Vodka
After high school, Edwin Trommelen began studying Russian language and literature, first at the University of Utrecht and later at the University of Amsterdam. In 1986, he spent a half a year in Moscow as part of his studies, before completing his studies in Amsterdam, with minors in Czech and Film Studies. After college, he worked at various jobs: as an intpreter and translator, as a tour guide, and as an editor for the Dutch television company AVRO. In 1989, he translated the novella Street of Freedom and poems by Nizametdin Akhmetov into Dutch. Russia is a common thread in most all of Trommelen’s work. In the late 1990s, he decided to concentrate on documentaries, with a good part of his work focused on Russia or the former Soviet Union. He worked on John Appel’s "Ilya Repin, Painter of the Russian Soul," Marjoleine Boonstra’s "Bela Bela – What Keeps Mankind Alive," and Jan Bosdriesz’s "Black Eyes." As director, his credits include "Back to the Camp" (about an Amsterdam woman who was imprisoned in Russia) and "Behind the Black Mountains" (about the Amsterdam Jewish boy Anton Devier, who traveled to Russia with Peter the Great and became the first Police Chief of St. Petersburg).