Dutch Director Carine Bijlsma’s D’Angelo Film Screens in Chicago

Fri, Aug 23 - Sat, Aug 24  2019

After premiering at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival , Dutch director Carine Bijlsma’s feature-length documentary film Devil’s Pie – D’Angelo will screen at the 25th Anniversary Black Harvest Film Festival in Chicago.

The documentary centers around R&B singer D’Angelo who had it all: two platinum-selling albums, a sold-out world tour and a body chiselled to perfection. However, one day at the height of his career in 2000 the soul singer vanished. For 12 years he descended into darkness. Out of nowhere, in December 2014, his third album Black Messiah was suddenly released: soundtrack of the lost years.

About Carine Bijlsma

Carine Bijlsma is a Dutch documentary filmmaker and photographer. After graduating from the St. Ignatius Gymnasium, she studied photography at Scuola d’Arte in Florence, the Photography Academy in Amsterdam and the School of Visual Arts in New York. She graduated in 2008 from the Dutch Film and Television Academy and winning both the Wildcard and the Prince Bernard Culture Fund Documentary award with her graduation film The Secret of Boccherini, a film about the love of her father, acclaimed cellist Anner Bylsma, for the music of the composer Luigi Boccherini. That film, as well as her following, were shown at film and music festivals around the world and aired on the NTR. Her next film Soloist was received very well, stating in the jury rapport of the Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF); ‘So sensitive is Bijlsma’s evocation of the two strands to Rosanne’s life, that there are moments that one wonders how such intimacy could possibly be captured on film. Soloist goes far beyond a simple portrait of a musician, in its sensitivity and intimacy, it is unique.’   She went on winning an Honorable Mention at the DOXA film festival in Vancouver for her film Extase, stating:“ This film captures the transcendent power of music through the journey of an impassioned conductor as he instils in the viewer a belief of the necessity of art in all our lives.” Her photography work has been published in magazines such as Avantgarde, Groene Amsterdammer, Akkoord Magazine and CD booklets of several artists including D’Angelo and the Vanguard’s Black Messiah (2014)