Tom Fassaert
Tom Fassaert (Naarden, 1979) grew up in both the Netherlands and South Africa before studying documentary film at the Dutch Film Academy in Amsterdam.
In 2006 Fassaert graduated with the critically acclaimed short documentary Doel Leeft, a film about a small Flemish village threatened with demolition. Doel Leeft was nominated for the Tusckinsky Award at the Dutch Film Festival and received an honorary mention from the jury at the International DOK Leipzig festival.
Since his graduation Fassaert made several short documentaries, including L’homme et la forêt, edited a feature length music documentary for director Frank Scheffer and wrote a scenario for a feature length documentary titled Sons of the Sun. In the meantime Fassaert stayed closely connected to Doel and it’s last residents, and decided to continue the story that started with his graduation film. In 2011, after five years of shooting and editing, he finally completed his debut feature length documentary De engel van Doel (An angel in Doel). De Engel van Doel had it's world premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival where it received an honorary mention from the jury. Since the Berlinale the film has been screened on more than thirty festivals worldwide and received several awards.
Currently Fassaert is working on a new feature length documentary titled Een geschiedenis van liefde (A history of love). A personal film that explores the delicate terrain along the fault line of his own family.
Besides making documentaries Tom Fassaert also teaches and coaches at the Nederlandse Filmacademie and at the IDFA Mediafonds workshop.