Rob Rombout

Rob Rombout (born 8 July 1953 in Amsterdam) is a Dutch filmmaker, a documentarian, and a teacher.
==Biography==
Rob Rombout was born in Amsterdam in 1953. He is a filmmaker and professor of documentary cinema. Since 1988, he has been teaching directing at LUCA School of Arts in Brussels. He is also a regular professor or a jury at INSAS (Brussels), the Royal Institute for Theatre, Cinema & Sound (RITCS) (Brussels), Universidade Lusófona (Lisbon), and a speaker at Paris 8 University Vincennes-Saint-Denis (Paris) and Marc Bloch University (Strasbourg). He is co-founder of Doc-Nomads, a program for international master's degree in documentary production. Rombout has also led workshops in different countries including Brazil, Vietnam, China, Canada, United States, and Lebanon.
Since L’homme qui en disait trop (The Man Who Said Too Much) in 1985, he has directed about fifteen documentaries, several of which have won international awards. His main works include Entre Deux Tours (1987), Perm-Mission (1999), Le Piège de Kerguelen (2000), Amsterdam via Amsterdam (co-directed with Rogier van Eck). Others are Queen Mary 2, Birth of a Legend (2004), Amsterdam Stories USA (2012), and a 2015 film on the Dutch writer Robert van Gulik, On the Track of Robert van Gulik (87 min).
Rombout was a member of the Brouillon d'un rêve Commission (SCAM Paris), the Brussels Audiovisual Center Commission, the VAF (Vlaams Audiovisueel Fonds). In two separate tenures, 1998 to 2005 and 2009 to 2013, he was the vice president of the Belgian Committee of the French Author Organization SCAM.
==Filmography==
* 1985 : L’Homme qui en disait trop (the story of a shop steward in a struggle against his former employer).
* 1986 : Pas de cadeau pour Noël (the uprooting and disillusionment of a Rwandan in Liège)
* 1987 : Entre deux tours (two buildings represent two extremely different philosophies).
* 1990 : Nord-Express (the train that connects Paris to Moscow since 1896)
* 1992 : Queen Elizabeth 2, Transatlantique (the last transatlantic cruise liner Queen Elizabeth 2)
* 1994 : Île Noire (portrait of an oil rig in the North Sea)
* 1995 : Les Açores de Madredeus (road movie in the Azores with the Portuguese music group Madredeus)
* 1997 : Amsterdam via Amsterdam
* 1999 : Perm-Mission (meeting with Russian filmmakers in Perm)
* 2000 : Le Piège de Kerguelen (a scientific expedition to the Kerguelen Islands)
* 2001 : Canton, la Chinoise (portrait of the city of Canton, China co-production: Robert Cohen)
* 2002 : Les Passagers de l’Alsace (portrait of eight characters in Alsace)
* 2003 : Overloon Penitentiary Centre (Kaleidoscope series, portrait of a prison in Holland)
* 2004 : Amsterdam via Amsterdam (Cinema Expedition co-director: Rogier van Eck)
* 2004 : Queen Mary 2, la Reine de la Mer (documentary on the construction and "maiden voyage" of the Queen Mary 2)
* 2004 : The Jagiellonian University (Kaleidoscope series, portrait of the University of Krakow, Poland)
* 2010 : Panamerican, road movie
* 2012 : Amsterdam Stories USA (road movie from east to west of the United States, passing through the fifteen places named Amsterdam)
* 2016 : On the track of Robert Van Gulik (portrait of the writer)
* 2024: Amsterdam Side-by-side, co-directed by Rogier van Eck (90 min)
==Awards and Honours==
Year	Ceremony 	Award 	Movie
1987	Video PSY 	Premier prix 	Pas de cadeau pour Noël
1988	Festival Video 	Premier prix 	
Entre deux tours
1988	Festival Video & S-8 	Best Video 	
Entre deux tours
1988	Grand prix du Festival de Montbéliard 	Premier prix 	
Entre deux tours
2000	Flahertiana Russia 	Award 	
Perm-mission
2000	Festival "Man and sea" 	Special Award 	
Le Piège de Kerguelen
2001	Festival international du cinéma francophone en Acadie	Meilleur documentaire 	
Canton, la Chinoise
2005	Route 66 Film Festivals 	Best Foreign Film 	
Amsterdam Via Amsterdam
2006	Silver Remi Award 39th Worldfest 	Special Award 	
Amsterdam Via Amsterdam
2013	Lisboa Cinema Festival 	Prix du Public 	
Amsterdam Stories USA
2013	22ième Festival of Ethnologique 	Grand Prix 	
Amsterdam Stories USA
2015	MIFEC, Porto 	Prémio Aurelio Paz dos Reis	
cinema personality
==Documentaries==
===Entre Deux Tours (1987)===
Entre Deux Tours (1987) is a unique allegorical film in Rob Rombout's filmography. It stands out from his previous reports for Canal Emploi and subsequent documentaries. With the adoption of the aesthetics and special effects of video art, the film departs from traditional documentary filmmaking by avoiding direct cinema and television reporting. He collaborated with other industry players like Jean-Pierre Bouyxou (editor), Stéphane Collignon (cameraman), and François Weyergans (composer).
The film focuses on two towers: one in Belgium, near the village of Eben, built by a stonemason, Robert Garcet, and inspired by the Tower of Babel. The second tower, located in Brunssum, the Netherlands, houses a NATO military base. It stages the two towers and their creators by creating an intermediate space that mixes plastic and poetic art. Natural landscapes, symbolic images, and video effects create a mystical and esoteric narrative. Entre Deux Tours is a turning point in Rob Rombout's career, as he moves away from social reporting to explore video art. He retains certain decisive choices in his future films: building his object, staging reality, filming the natural beauty of things, and creating plastic forms that carry meaning.
===L'ile Noire (1994)===
The film delves deeply into the daily life and experiences of workers on an artificial oil platform, an inhospitable, unaesthetic, and strictly utilitarian place. Faced with a difficult and dangerous environment, the director chose to use three distinct perspectives to depict the reality of the workers on the platform: that of the architect, offering an overview of the place; that of the sociologist, allowing a more human and close approach to individuals; and that of the observer, who places himself directly on the drilling site and becomes an active participant in the process.
The film was shot on film with fixed lenses, despite the challenges posed by the ubiquitous mud and the risk of explosion due to the gas present on the platform. Some sequences were shot in black and white to emphasize the gestures and physical work of the workers, rather than the bright colors of their clothing. The director drew inspiration from a Cinema of Russia of the 1920s to create an experimental and fragmented montage that retains a raw and authentic aspect.
The film's soundtrack reflects the disharmony and contrasts present on the platform, alternating between very noisy scenes and quieter ones. The director enlisted Jean-Louis Daulne to compose two different styles of music: a mechanical and rhythmic music inspired by Sergei Prokofiev, to illustrate the industrial and technical aspect of the platform; and a more emotional and melodic country-style music to represent the workers and their feelings. The latter underscores their need to escape from their confined and deprived of any privacy environment.
Finally, the film also addresses the situation of underemployed individuals on a nearby rescue ship, who are forced to remain in proximity to the platform at all times. These individuals, mostly underpaid Scots, aspire to work on the platform but do not possess the necessary qualifications. Their living conditions contrast with those of the platform workers, who despise them while envying their forced inactivity. This film offers a unique and striking glimpse into an unknown and inhospitable world.
===The Trap of Kerguelen (2000)===
Sent by King Louis XV to explore a hypothetical southern continent, Yves de Kerguelen discovered the Desolation Islands, now named after him, in 1772. Director Rob Rombout, inspired by Jean-Paul Kauffmann's book, L'Arche des Kerguelen, decided to create a film about these islands. The film follows a team of evolutionary biology researchers studying the behavior of wild cats, descendants of cats abandoned by the Kerguelen crew. Rombout draws a parallel between the Kerguelen expedition and that of the researchers, emphasizing the failures and analogies between the two. The film explores the futility of human enterprises and questions the necessity of conducting research in such difficult conditions. By challenging the conventions of traditional documentary filmmaking, Le Piège de Kerguelen offers a reflection on cinema and its expressive possibilities.
Category:1953 births
Category:People from Amsterdam
Category:Dutch people
Category:Filmmakers
Category:Documentaries
Category:Teachers