Eef de Graaf

Eef de Graaf was born in Rotterdam, the Netherlands in 1969.
She grew up in different places in Holland and studied art in Groningen at Minerva Art School. She graduated in 1993 as a painter. Because of her interest in theatre, other art disciplines and science, she continued studying at the University of Groningen.
Her rising fascination for video convinced her that filmmaking could give her the challenges she was looking for. In 1996 she moved to Rotterdam and started to work as a freelance reporter for a radio station. She also continued working as an artist and set up several exhibitions. In 1999 she moved for a period to Gothenburg in Sweden. Here she had close contact with the dancers of the Opera House and started working with dance and video again.
In 2000 she moved back to Rotterdam and went to study film in Den Haag with experimental filmmaker Frans Zwartjes. She made several dance and other experimental videos. In 2002 she moved for six months to Barcelona and made a video documentary about her stay there, later this year she shot her first short 16 mm film in The Netherlands.
Her film Circulos Cuadrados premiered in 2003 at the Rotterdam Film Festival and has been shown at many festivals around the world, like Sueños Cortos in Argentina, Brazil Noar in Barcelona, Art Film Festival in Slovakia and Morbengno Art Film in Italy.
The film she made in 2003/2004 Pulse of the City was also selected for the Rotterdam Film Festival in 2004 and shown on many festivals around the world. The film received an award for best film, from the Jury of Festival Cinema da Mare, South Italy.
In 2005 Eef won a prize for the contest 'Rotterdam Shorts' and received a budget to make her first 35mm film in Rotterdam with
her original screenplay De Grijns. She realised this film as a screenwriter, director and co-producer. The film premiered in 2006.
In 2007 she finished her film about Lorca,’ Garcia Lorca esta Vivo?’
It premiered in Rotterdam in 2008 and is selected for the museum of modern art in Warshaw, Poland and the shortfilmcorner in Cannes.
In 2009, she made mirror me and "Zadkine and the growing city", an animation film and a short documentairy, again she won the prize for the scenario of Zadkine and the Growing City and got a small budget to make the film. This film was selected for the dutch filmfestival in Utrecht. Currently she is working at different independent film and art projects.