Programming & Curation
Good programming can be just as illuminating and argumentative as criticism. Hugo’s curatorial aim is to transform a screening room into a laboratory, a place to — alongside the audience — explore unchartered territories in the world of film.
Hugo’s curatorial work sits at the boundary between mainstream and experimental film, with a particular focus on digital cinema and its formal possibilities in the 21st century — the ways in which new tools and distribution contexts have transformed not just how films are made, but how we can even conceive of film in a completely novel context. He has programmed for major Dutch institutions as well as smaller, more specialist contexts, always with the same aim: to dig deeper in the mysteries of a communal film experience.
He is available for guest programming, curatorial consultancy, and festival jury work — get in touch.
Selected Curatorial Work
Feat or Failure — Eye Film Institute, Amsterdam
A film programme built around Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis: examining the film not just as a work but as an event, tracing the tradition of grand, divisive, visionary failure in American cinema.
Early and Obscure Apichatpong Weerasethakul — Eye Film Institute, Amsterdam
A retrospective of short and early work by one of contemporary cinema’s most singular voices, designed to reveal the formal and spiritual logic that underlies his better-known features.
Director’s Forum — Netherlands Film Festival, Utrecht
Curated competition section dedicated to Dutch auteur cinema, programming and contextualising the work of emerging and established Dutch directors in conversation with the broader European art-film tradition.
Which Way Is Up? — MACA, Amsterdam
A thematic programme surveying digital cinema across the 21st century: asking what the shift to digital has done to image-making, to storytelling, and to the experience of watching films in a darkened room.
Theatrical Programming — Filmtheater Velsen, IJmuiden
Regular programming of theatrical releases for a community cinema audience, balancing accessibility with genuine curatorial ambition.
Programme Coordinator, South-East Asian Cinema — CinemAsia Film Festival, Amsterdam
Selecting and contextualising films from across South-East Asia for one of Europe’s few festivals dedicated to the region.
Classics Programming — Het Nutshuis, The Hague
Curating screenings of canonical and overlooked films in a non-traditional venue, building programmes that speak to both cinephile and general audiences.