Volya Films was established in 2004. It is a Rotterdam based company producing author fiction films and creative documentaries, mainly as international co-productions. Volya Films works with both young and experienced filmmakers, amongst others Ineke Smits, Marjoleine Boonstra, Stella van Voorst van Beest, Juan Sebastian Lopez Maas and Patrick Minks. We have worked with and sold our films to various broadcasters: IKON, NPS, TV Catalunya, YLE, NHK, ARTE France etc.
Our recent films include THE LIGHT THIEF (Svet-Ake) by Aktan Arym Kubat (Quinzaine / Director's Fortnight Cannes 2010), PRISONERS OF THE GROUND by Stella van Voorst van Beest (Closing Night Film Netherlands Film Festival; IDFA; BAFICI), LOS VIAJES DEL VIENTO by Ciro Guerra (Cannes - Un Certain Regard; IFF Rotterdam), and DOUBLE TAKE by Johan Grimonprez (Berlinale Forum Expanded; Middle East IFF Abu Dhabi Award Best Documentary Director; Sundance Film Festival).
Volya Films is currently developing and financing new projects with Vuk Janic, Stella van Voorst van Beest and the Uzbek director Saodat Ismailova.
Volya Films is a member of the EAVE, Eurodoc, Binger and EDN networks.
Denis Vaslin graduated from the department of Slavic Culture & Languages of the Institute of Oriental Languages in Paris in 1994. After five years of working as a distributor and then for a production company in France, he moved to The Netherlands. From 1999 until 2004, he worked as a production coordinator/manager and as a line producer.
Denis started Volya Films in 2004 to produce and co-produce author fiction films and creative documentaries. The company develops projects with young directors and more experienced filmmakers mainly in the frame of international co-productions. Denis is a graduate of the Binger Lab in 2004, EAVE 2006 and EURODOC 2007.
Fleur Knopperts is Head of Development at Rotterdam-based production company Volya Films. She works on the development and international financing of both documentary and fiction projects.
Previously, she was Director of the FORUM for international co-financing of documentaries at IDFA in Amsterdam – the largest and most prestigious international documentary market in the world. She started her career working for International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) and Festival a/d Werf – a festival for experimental theatre. After two years of alternating between these two festivals, she took up a fulltime position at the IDFA where, among other things, she co-organised the yearlong documentary script workshop. From 1998 until 2000, she was co-ordinator of the Jan Vrijman Fund, which gives financial support to documentary filmmakers from developing countries. In 2007 she worked for Doc/Fest in Sheffield where as Industry & Marketplace Director she set up MeetMarket – the new international marketplace in the UK for independent documentary projects in development. She is a graduate of the Eurodoc programme for documentary producers and is a tutor for Doc Station at the Berlinale Talent Campus.
Sabine Groenewegen graduated from Utrecht University College in 2005 with an international BA in Social Science (Political Science and Cultural Anthropology). She went on to study Conflict Studies and Human Rights within a Master program of Utrecht University, focusing on the role of the media in conflict. After her studies she started working with filmmaker Mahmoud Massad on his documentary ‘Recycle’ which was awarded at the Sundance Film Festival and screened at over 70 film festivals. Since then she has worked freelance on several documentaries before joining Volya Films in the summer of 2009 as a junior producer. She is a 2009 EAVE graduate.