I didn’t decide to become a screenwriter. I started writing because, at the time, it was the only way I knew to deal with something I couldn’t simply put aside.

After a visit to the south of France, I realised that someone had stayed with me in a way I hadn’t expected. It took me weeks even to understand what I was feeling. I knew it wasn’t about wanting a relationship. It was simply something I couldn’t ignore.

So I began to write.

What started as a way of making sense of something deeply personal became something else: a fascination with characters caught between the lives they choose and the lives that circumstances, family, love or belief choose for them.

I write character-driven feature films that move between intimate relationships and larger moral conflicts, often crossing countries, cultures and very different worlds.

I am based in Groningen, the Netherlands. My completed feature screenplay THE DISTANCE BETWEEN US has also been adapted into German as GANZ DA, and I am currently developing my next feature, THE LOST CODEX.