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MARCUS HU REMEMBERS WOUTER BARENDRECHT
If you haven’t read Marcus Hu’s remembrance of Wouter Barendrecht, who died unexpectedly last week, over at Indiewire, I highly recommend that you do so. Marcus lovingly captures Wouter’s charm, irreverence, and warmth, and the piece’s headline — “Wouter Barendrecht: A Family Man” — speaks to his ability to make what some people view as just a business instead a global sharing among friends and colleagues.
Marcus opens:
Wouter cared deeply for his friends and cherished them. His wonderful group dinners were his expression of embracing us, not as work colleagues, but as family. The Fortissimo family he designed with his partner Michael Werner was a loyal troupe dedicated to bringing the art of film to the masses. Fortissimo brought some of the greatest films and filmmakers to screens around the world.
Read the full appreciation at the link.
As an aside, several years ago James Schamus interviewed Wouter for Filmmaker. It’s a more business-oriented piece, and those readers who are not quite sure what a sales agent does, and how the detailed knowledge and forward thinking of Wouter and his colleagues has shaped our culture of art cinema, should revisit this 2002 conversation. And if you have not gone to the Wouter Barendrecht Condolence Register established by his family, please head there and read the postings of his many friends.
