Mirror of Holland

Almost no one had ever heard of Bert Haanstra when his Mirror of Holland won the Grand Prix for best short film during the Cannes Film Festival of 1951. In an instant the maker of that film was internationally known. In this short film he gives his vision - from the water – of a tranquil Holland. During filming he held the camera upside down and afterwards put the images ‘up right’ again in the film. By doing this, we see the ‘usual’ waterfront, but transformed by the rippling of the water. In this way Mirror of Holland became a modern looking experimental film. However this did not devalue the Dutch sentiment regarding waterfronts that are so trusted to so many. (Doc Alliance Films)