Vladimir Murtin was chairman of the UNICA 2000 jury and a member of the organising committee.  He also represented the Netherlands on the jury.  But for enthusiasts in the UK he is best known as an outstanding moviemaker.

Vladimir was born in Bratislava (Slovakia) in 1936.  He has been keenly interested in the film medium since he was a high school student.  In his old home country, Czechoslovakia, he planned to study at the Prague film academy and go into the film industry.  This proved impossible for political reasons and he has spent his working life in computing.

He has been active in amateur movie making for a long time.  After the Soviet invasion in 1968 he left his country and settled in the Netherlands where he started making amateur films in 1974.  For five years he lived in England where he was an active IAC member.  There he joined forces with an English friend, Reg Lancaster, and together they made their first fiction film.

As Reg recalls it,  they met when Reg was asked to judge at a club competition where the entries were stripped of their credits and screened anonymously.  He found that he had awarded all three prizes to the same film maker: Vladimir.

 After his return to the Netherlands their co-operation proved to be very fruitful and enjoyable.  Reg spent several of his holidays across the Channel shooting films with Vladimir. Soon afterwards Jan  Schoonen joined the group.  Together they called themselves Triad Films and produced a number of successful works.

Over the years several of their films were selected for international competitions.  Readers will probably remember Tandem and Olympia best of all.  Although Vladimir has made a number of documentaries working alone, his main interest is fiction and whenever he can find a group of like-minded friends he turns his attention to that genre.

At first alone and later working in a group he has won many national and international awards.  He has also served as a member of the jury in many competitions in the Netherlands and elsewhere.  Recently he founded Liga 99 (League 99) - a group of interested film makers who meet regularly to talk about and practice the creative aspects of movie making from the idea through to post-production.

Over the years Vladimir has worked with all amateur  film gauges and recently he made the step from 16mm film to digital video.  He likes to express ideas by visual means arguing that above all else a  film is image.  Vladimir is interesting in international contacts between people who have been bitten by the movie-making bug.

Slightly adapted from a feature in Unica News
the magazine of UNICA (editor Ctirad Stipl).

Visit UNICA's website.

Page updated on 21 March 2008

Authors' views are not necessarily those of The Institute of Amateur Cinematographers

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