Halal

Johan Kramer is an advertising icon turned exquisite filmmaker, he is a terrific storyteller who loves the documentary-format.

His first feature-length film was ‘The Other Final’, a documentary about the world’s two lowest ranked national soccer teams, Bhutan and Montserrat, and their match that took place on the same day as the World Cup Final. It won numerous awards at international film festivals including Toronto, Barcelona, Bermuda, Berlin and Avignon. In Holland, it was chosen as the best Sports documentary ever.

His next film project, ‘Sing for Darfur’, premiered at the Tokyo Film Festival and won “Best European Dramatic Feature” at the European Independent Film Festival in 2009.

In 2011, the highly anticipated feature ‘Johan Primero’ arrived in Dutch and Spanish cinemas. A year later, “Bye Bye Super 8” premiered at the Tribeca Film Festial in New York. This sweet documentary short, starring 25 8-year olds, was a farewell to the now obsolete Kodachrome film.

In between his work on long format features, Johan keeps on shooting commercials, quite often with a documentary approach. In his former life, Johan was partner of KesselsKramer, an internationally renowned communications agency. In 2006, Johan left his partnership at KesselsKramer in order to dedicate his time to directing.

More recently Johan picked up photography as well, and not much to anyone’s surprise, he excelled and received much praise for the documentary feel he brings to his images. There is always a sense of intimacy, honesty and purity that has become Johan’s trademark over the years.

Johan is an utter creative at heart, never stands still and is thus also known for creating his own projects. A touching documentary for example, about the stadium speaker of FC Barcelona and a short about Dutch Cycling legend Joop Zoetemelk, are the latest projects to have been created by Johan himself. Recently, Johan curated and art directed exhibitions for several museums and did a children’s book project with his youngest daughter.

Johan is always looking for new stories. Watch this space.