Theo van Gogh
Theo van Gogh
23 July 1957 – 2 November 2004
23 July 1957 – 2 November 2004
Theodoor "Theo" van Gogh was a Dutch film director, film producer, columnist, author and actor.
Van Gogh worked with the Somali-born writer Ayaan Hirsi Ali to produce the film Submission, which criticized the treatment of women in Islam and aroused controversy among some Muslims. On 2 November 2004 he was assassinated by Mohammed Bouyeri, a Dutch-Moroccan Muslim.
The last film he completed before his death, 06/05, is a fictional version of the assassination of the politician Pim Fortuyn, who was also killed in an Islam-related incident two years prior.
Theo van Gogh was born in The Hague, Netherlands. His father, Johan van Gogh, was a member of the Dutch secret service ('AIVD', then called 'BVD'). Theo's uncle, also named Theo, was executed by the Germans as a resistance fighter during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands during World War II. Theo's great-grandfather was the art dealer Theo van Gogh, brother of the artist Vincent van Gogh.
After dropping out of law school at the University of Amsterdam, van Gogh became a stage manager. His self-proclaimed passion was filmmaking, and he debuted as a director with the movie Luger (1981). He received a Gouden Kalf ("Golden Calf", the Dutch equivalent of the Oscar) for Blind Date (1996) and In het belang van de staat ("In the Interest of the State") (1997). For the latter, he also received a "Certificate of Merit" from the San Francisco International Film Festival. As an actor he appeared in the production De noorderlingen ("The Northerners", 1992).
After that, he worked for television. Van Gogh also wrote provocative columns for Metro and other newspapers. He wrote polemic prose. His website was called De Gezonde Roker ("The Healthy Smoker").[1] The site's name, which is also the title of one of his books, was an allusion both to his notorious chain smoking and to the "politically correct" negative stance towards smoking in society.
Although van Gogh seemed to enjoy his life, he said he would not mind dying if it were not for his young son. His last book (2003) was Allah weet het beter (Allah Knows Better) in which he described his views on Islam in his typically cynical, mocking tone. He was a well-known critic of Islam, particularly after the September 11, 2001 attacks. He supported the nomination of the liberal (former PvdA Labour Party), Somalian-born female politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali for Dutch parliament.
IMDB
Filmography on Avaxhome:
* Luger (1982)
* Een dagje naar het strand ("A Day at the Beach", 1984)
* Charley (1986)
* Terug naar Oegstgeest ("Back to Oegstgeest", 1987)
* Loos ("Wild", 1989)
* Vals licht ("Fake Light", 1993)
* Ilse verandert de geschiedenis ("Ilse Changes History", 1993)
* 06 (1994)
* Reunie ("Reunion", 1994)
* Eva (1994)
* Een galerij: De wanhoop van de sirene ("A Gallery: The Despair of the Siren", 1994)
* De Eenzame Oorlog Van Koos Tak ("Koos Tak's Lonely War", 1995)
* Blind Date (1996)
* Hoe ik mijn moeder vermoordde ("How I Killed My Mother", 1996)
* In het belang van de staat ("In the Interest of the State", 1997)
* Au ("Ouch", 1997)
* De Pijnbank ("The Rack", 1998)
* Baby Blue (2001)
* De nacht van Aalbers ("Aalbers's Night", 2001)
* Najib en Julia (2002) television play based on William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet about the love between a white upper-class girl and a pizza delivery man of Moroccan descent.
* Interview (2003), cynical journalist interviews society actress.
* Zien ("Seeing", 2004)
* Submission (2004)
* Cool (2004) a film about young offenders, some of them of Moroccan descent. In the movie the offenders play themselves.
* 06/05 (2004), a film mixing fact and fiction around the assassination of Pim Fortuyn.
* Medea (2005), a modern day adaptation of Medea.
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