Halina Reijn

Halina Reijn is the rare case of a Dutch female actor who has successfully expanded her film portfolio as a director/writer/producer. Reijn’s debut as director/co-writer/producer was the drama, Instinct (2019), starring Carice van Houten and Marsan Kenzari, which premiered at the Locarno Film Festival (where it won two prizes) and was released in the US by A24 and submitted by the Netherlands as the official entry in the Oscar’s International Feature Film competition.

Reijn’s second filmmaking project (after making a short film, For the Birds, in 2021) was as director of Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022), her first movie in English and with American backing and cast, including Amandla Stenberg, Maria Bakalova, Myha’la Herrold, Chase Sui Wonders, Rachel Sennott, Lee Pace, and Pete Davidson, and was released in the US by A24 and abroad by Sony Pictures Releasing International after premiering at the South by Southwest Film Festival.

Reijn was director/writer/producer of the erotic drama starring Nicole Kidman, Babygirl (2024), with Harris Dickinson, Sophie Wilde, and Antonio Banderas, premiering in competition at the Venice Film Festival (where Kidman won the best actress Volpi Cup) and released again by A24, which also co-produced.

Halina Reijn’s career before filmmaking included a lengthy run as an actor on screen, TV, and stage, most notably in the films Zus & Zo (2001), directed and written by Paula der Oest; director Alex van Warmerdam’s Grimm (2003); Paul Verhoeven’s stunning WW2 drama, Black Book (2006); the Bryan Singer-directed Nazi-themed thriller, Valkyrie, starring Tom Cruise; and filmmaker Peter Greenaway’s historical Dutch drama, Goltzius and the Pelican Company (2012), with Ramsay Nasr, F. Murray Abraham and Giulia Berruti, and which premiered at the Netherlands Film Festival.