Heleen Gerritsen

Heleen Gerritsen has been Artistic Director of the Deutsche Kinemathek since June 2025. The role means she is also responsible for the Retrospective and Berlinale Classics sections of the Berlin International Film Festival.

Gerritsen was born in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, in 1978. She studied Slavonic Languages, Eastern European History and Economics in Amsterdam and Russian Philology in Saint Petersburg. While still a student, she worked for international festivals and production companies, including Lenfilm and the international literature festival berlin.

After posts in film and television production, including at ARTE, SWR, RBB and SAT.1, she moved on to leading curatorial roles. From 2014 to 2016, she headed the dokumentART – European Documentary Film Festival in Neubrandenburg and, from 2017 to 2025, the goEast – Festival of Central and Eastern European Film at the DFF – Deutsches Filminstitut & Filmmuseum in Wiesbaden.

Her main areas of focus are Central and Eastern European cinema,culture(s) of remembrance and immersive narrative formats. She has curated exhibitions including “VR/VX – Tales from the Bathhouse” (2023) and initiated interdisciplinary discussion formats. As a writer, her most recent publications include “Decolonising the (Post)Soviet Screen” (2023/24) and “Subversive Montage” (2024). In 2024, she also collaborated on the screenplay for Radu Jude’s “Heia, Heia, Safari!”.

Heleen Gerritsen serves on international juries and works as a speaker and presenter around the world. She speaks several languages, including Dutch, German, English, Russian, French and Farsi.