Kim Brand (1987) graduated in audio-visual media from the Utrecht School of the Arts (Hogeschool voor de Kunsten Utrecht, HKU) in 2009. In her final year she made the documentary ‘De Zorgfabriek’. (The Care Factory). The film follows daily life in a nursing home where bureaucracy and the demand for efficiency are gradually taking over. It was selected for the student competition at the international documentary festival IDFA and broadcast on Dutch public television. De Zorgfabriek also won a Wildcard from the Netherlands’ Film Fund – a cash prize intended to finance a new documentary.
This prize was the basis for the production of Wat de kat ziet, (What the Cat Sees), a film about a cat that sits at the entrance to a Dutch hospital everyday. Sometimes it responds to people, sometimes not. It seems indifferent, but the cat’s very presence comforts people. For her documentary, Kim and her camera took up position by the cat’s favourite spot for many days. Regular visitors to the hospital and passersby talk to her about life, being ill, saying goodbye, being aware of what you have and – of course – the cat. Wat de kat ziet was nominated for a prize in the Short Documentary category at the 2011 Netherlands Film Festival.
In 2011 and 2012 Kim made her first long documentary (50 min.) Among Women, about initiation rites for girls in Zambia. In an isolated village, she closely follows the rites that mark a girl’s passage to womanhood and tries to come to an understanding of the village women’s wisdom. The documentary was broadcast on Dutch public television in 2013 and has been shown at various festivals.
As well as her own documentaries, Kim is also regularly commissioned to make short films for television and/or internet. These include an episode of the series Slag om Nederland (Battle for the Netherlands, her film focused on a failing Housing Corporation in an attractive neighbourhood) and has filmed and directed various items for documentary makers Bram van Splunteren en Fons Dellen (including items for programmes about love relationships and music).
She has made short internet videos for a range of clients: music and film festivals, a group of hospitals, a local council advice service and a healthcare innovation company. In general, they are all concerned with social welfare issues, and people and their stories are central to Kim’s work.
Vision
What Kim most enjoys exploring are lives lived differently. She wants to learn from people who make unusual choices in their lives, or choose to live in a way that deviates from the norm. In Zambia, she wanted to experience life in ‘primitive’ conditions. A life wholly dedicated to meeting a few basic needs and
lived in close contact with nature. Through attention to detail and focusing on the small things, Kim aims to make people aware of the, sometimes extraordinary, nature of daily life. Kim believes film offers a fresh way of looking at daily experience. She tells her stories primarily through images and leaves it to the viewer to draw their own conclusions.