Klaartje Quirijns, a renowned award-winning filmmaker, was born in 1967 in the Netherlands. She pursued a law degree from the University of Amsterdam, graduating in 1992. Since then, she has worked as a journalist and director, initially producing reports for Dutch television's most prominent investigative program.
Quirijns' career as a filmmaker began with her documentary The Brooklyn Connection, released in 2005. This film explored the fine line between being a freedom fighter and a terrorist, shedding light on the complex issue of gun-running in the United States. Her subsequent documentary, The Dictator Hunter, released in 2007, focused on the struggle to hold dictators accountable for their actions.
In 2012, Quirijns received critical acclaim for her documentary Peace vs Justice, which examined the moral dilemmas arising from the pursuit of Western ideals of justice. Her documentary Anton Corbijn Inside Out, also released in 2012, was a portrait of the renowned Dutch photographer and filmmaker, Anton Corbijn, and the forces that drive him.
Quirijns' most recent documentary, Your Mum and Dad, released in 2019, is an essayistic film that draws on psychoanalysis to explore the roles we play and how understanding these patterns can help us break free from them. The film premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and has since been screened at various international film festivals.
In addition to her documentary work, Quirijns has also ventured into fiction filmmaking. Her first fiction film, Speelman, premiered at the Dutch Film Festival in 2013 and received great acclaim. The short version, View On A Marriage, was acquired by Shorts International.
Currently, Quirijns is working on two new projects: The Dictator Hunters, a fiction film based on her documentary of the same name, and The Detour, a full-length fiction film based on a book by Gerbrand Bakker, winner of the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2013.
