Hi, welcome.

I’m a trilingual filmmaker, visual artist and writer.

Much of my work takes a visual form. My short docs and video journalism have appeared in publications like The Texas Tribune, Business Insider, the Mail & Guardian, NPR and Politico, as well as in various film festivals. Alongside directing, I also work as a cinematographer, video editor and FAA licensed drone pilot.

My writing, reporting and criticism have appeared in Ultra Dogme, Business Insider, City Limits and the Mail & Guardian.

Ultimately I’m interested in the intersection of documentary practice, art and narrative — and I use text and image to explore that interest.

I'm an artist, filmmaker, and Associate Professor in Film at Edinburgh Napier University, Scotland.

My practice and research interests relate to depicting other worlds: un(der)explored territories nearby and far away; human and non-human, film as art, hybrid film, sensory film, ecologies of the sea, land, sky and exchanges in-between. Alongside directing, I usually take on another crew role as cinematographer, sound recordist or editor.

My work is presented at film festivals, art exhibitions, conferences, and museums. Highlights are winner of the Jury Prize at the 57th Ann Arbor Film Festival 2019 for Wolves From Above, Wroclaw Media Art Biennale, and screenings at Festival Du Nouveau Cinéma Montréal, Hamptons IFF, Edinburgh IFF, Zinebi, Full Frame, Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp [M HKA], FACT Liverpool, and The National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Seoul [MMCA].

In March 2020 I completed a PhD in Film Production (Liverpool John Moores University) with thesis title: Empathising with Animals: Non-Human Subjectivity in Documentary Film. Additionally, I obtained a BA (Hons) Archaeology (University of Amsterdam, 2008), MA Philosophy (University of Amsterdam, 2009), and an MA Documentary Filmmaking (Royal Holloway University of London, 2010).

With Lars Koens I wrote a chapter about the juxtaposition of voice-over, sound, and image in a selection of Peter Mettler's films (Chapter 7: Creative use of voice in non-fiction narrative film: an examination of the work of Peter Mettler). -- available here

From 2015-2021 I was Senior Lecturer for the BA (Hons) Film Studies, MA Film, and MA Art in Science at Liverpool John Moores University, UK. Earlier I was tutor at Edinburgh College of Art / University of Edinburgh and worked at Scottish Documentary Institute.

Kooij is pronounced as: coy
:-)