Profile

Profiel was born out of a collaboration between several broadcasters—a biography program created by various makers, built around the age-old question: What makes Sammy run? What drives people? What sets them in motion?

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From Beatrix and Máxima to Rutte and Pechtold, from André Rieu to Boudewijn de Groot, from Bassie and Adriaan to Johan Derksen. I quickly sensed: this program was made for me. I created dozens of episodes, and André Rouvoet turned out to “score” just as well as Erica Terpstra.

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I usually opted for a structure in which others—both close to and further removed from the main subject—help paint their portrait, supported by telling archive footage. I chose this approach because, for many Dutch celebrities, their lives and careers have long since become a well-rehearsed story—told a thousand times on autopilot.

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This method produced many special moments. Truus van Gaal spoke movingly about her husband Louis, and how touched she was when he recited the poem by the bedside that he would later declare at a press conference. A friend of Christian politician André Rouvoet recalled how, in their youth, they smashed LPs because certain pop songs supposedly contained satanic messages. A former teacher of Alexander Pechtold fought back tears as she recounted how he struggled under the crushing expectations of his father.

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I came to realize that seemingly small, personal stories from someone’s close circle can reveal more about the person being portrayed than many grand biographical interpretations.

 

Later, I would create a contemporary counterpart to Profiel for Omroep MAX—a portrait series I fittingly titled Door Andere Ogen (Through Different Eyes).