---
name: "George Sluizer"
canonical: "https://film.one/person/george-sluizer"
fi1m_id: "george-sluizer"
imdb_id: "nm0806293"
tmdb_id: 18335
wikidata_id: "Q345994"
roles: ["Producer","Director"]
born: "25 June 1932"
died: "20 September 2014"
reviewed_on_fi1m: 2
average_as: "producer"
average_over: 1
updated: "2026-09-26T01:44:12.367135+00:00"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# George Sluizer

## Identity

George Sluizer

- **Canonical:** https://film.one/person/george-sluizer
- **Type:** Person
- **Fi1m ID:** george-sluizer
- **IMDb ID:** nm0806293
- **TMDB ID:** 18335
- **Wikidata ID:** Q345994
- **Same entity:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Sluizer, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q345994, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0806293/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/18335

Producer and director. Born 25 June 1932 in Paris, France. Died 20 September 2014.

## Details

- **Work:** Producer, Director
- **Born:** 25 June 1932, Paris, France
- **Died:** 20 September 2014
- **Active:** 1982–1988
- **Titles on Fi1m:** 2: 1 directing, 1 producing
- **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Sluizer, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q345994, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0806293/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/18335

## Fi1m on George Sluizer

> George Sluizer made one thriller that tells you the answer first and frightens you anyway, then spent much of what followed in its shadow, including a Hollywood remake of it that changed the ending. *The Vanishing* (1988) is enough to be going on with.

A woman goes into a motorway shop for drinks and does not come out. George Sluizer holds on the doors, and on Gene Bervoets by the car looking at them, then at his watch, then at them again, and he does not cut to a hand or a van or anything else that would tell us what has happened. We watched that scene in *The Vanishing* (1988) without breathing properly and did not notice until it was over. Nothing moves, and that is why. It is the plainest idea in Sluizer's work and the best one: film the ordinary thing in ordinary light and let the audience do the rest.

He got there slowly. He trained at IDHEC in Paris in the mid-1950s, assisted Bert Haanstra, and spent the 1960s on documentaries and shorts. The features, when they came, were *João en het mes* (1972), shot in Brazil, and *Twee vrouwen* (1979), and like most of what followed they were made across borders and in more than one language; he had spoken several since childhood. Then *Spoorloos*, which he co-wrote with Tim Krabbé from Krabbé's novel, produced, directed and cut himself. It is the film that got him noticed outside the Netherlands, and it is the one everything after it is measured against.

What he did well in it he did by method. Toni Kuhn lights the service station like a holiday snapshot, Lin Friedman's cutting never hurries, and Krabbé's killer is given a long, calm account of himself on a car journey that Donnadieu makes sound reasonable from the first word to the last. Sluizer said of the film that he believed only in grey, not in black or white, and it shows: the man in the cardigan is not a monster with a theme tune, he is a neighbour who has done his homework. That is what makes the film hard to shake, and it is a harder trick than any amount of blood.

Then Hollywood. He remade the film for 20th Century Fox in 1993 and changed the ending, and the remake is widely thought the poorer for it. We have not reviewed it and will not judge it at length, but it is a strange thing for the man who built the first ending to have agreed to. He said afterwards that a director starting out in Hollywood is simply an employee. *Utz* (1992), from Bruce Chatwin, kept his habit of working from novels; *Crimetime* (1996) and *The Commissioner* (1998) came and went with little notice. *Dark Blood*, begun in 1993 and stopped when its lead, River Phoenix, died, he finished himself in 2012, which tells you something about his patience.

Watch the Dutch one, on a night when you do not have to drive anywhere afterwards. It is the work of a man who understood that the most frightening thing you can show an audience is a pair of doors that stay shut. He did not get to show it twice.

## Biography

George Sluizer (1932–2014) was a Dutch filmmaker who directed, wrote, edited and produced feature films and documentaries. Born in Paris to Dutch and Norwegian parents, he began working in film in the 1960s and remained active until his death.

He is best known for *The Vanishing* (1988), originally released in Dutch as *Spoorloos*, on which he served as director, co-writer, editor and producer. Sluizer also directed the 1993 American remake. Other feature films he directed include *Utz* (1992), *Crimetime* (1995) and *Dark Blood*, which was completed and premiered in 2012 after being halted by the death of its lead actor River Phoenix in 1993.

*Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com.*

## On Fi1m (2)

### Directed (1)

- *The Vanishing* (1988), Fi1m 88, Screenplay, Producer, Editor, Director — [page](https://film.one/film/the-vanishing.md)

### Produced (1) — the average rests on these

- *Fitzcarraldo* (1982), Fi1m 82, Production Manager — [page](https://film.one/film/fitzcarraldo.md)

## Complete filmography (29)

Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page.

- *Sluizer Speaks* (2014), Actor
- *Dark Blood* (2012), Director
- *Homeland* (2010), Director, Story, Producer
- *The Stone Raft* (2002), Writer, Producer, Director
- *The Commissioner* (1998), Director, Screenplay
- *Dying to Go Home* (1996), Writer, Director, Producer
- *Crimetime* (1996), American Director, Executive Producer, Director
- *The Vanishing* (1993), Director
- *Utz* (1992), Director
- *The Vanishing* (1988), Director, Producer, Screenplay, Editor — Fi1m 88, [page](https://film.one/film/the-vanishing.md)
- *Red Desert Penitentiary* (1985), as Kemheim · Writer, Producer, Director
- *Bastille* (1984), as Clochard / Eerste taxichauffeur · Producer
- *Adios Beirut* (1983), Director
- *Fitzcarraldo* (1982), Production Manager — Fi1m 82, [page](https://film.one/film/fitzcarraldo.md)
- *Sweetwater Junction* (1980), Director, Editor
- *Twice a Woman* (1979), Director, Screenplay, Producer
- *A Reason to Go* (1977), Sound, Editor, Director
- *Land of the Fathers* (1974), Director
- *Zeca, portret van een Vaqueiro* (1973), Director, Sound
- *Drie Dagen Respijt in São Luís* (1973), Director, Sound
- *Letters* (1973), Director, Sound
- *João and the Knife* (1972), Producer, Director, Writer
- *Stamping Ground* (1971), Director
- *The Raft* (1970), Editor, Sound, Director
- *The Lonely Dorymen* (1968), Director
- *Clair-Obscur* (1963), Director, Producer, Scenario Writer
- *Hold Back the Sea* (1961), Scenario Writer, Director
- *Fanfare* (1958), Assistant Director
- *Kleren maken de man* (1957), Assistant Director, Writer

## Gallery

- ![George Sluizer in his Amsterdam residence. (2012)](https://film.one/media/person/436544/gallery-c661827ea154.jpg) George Sluizer in his Amsterdam residence. (2012) — Martijn Savenije, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/af/George-sluizer-1342604928.jpg/1280px-George-sluizer-1342604928.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![Director George Sluizer at the Miami International Film Festival North American Premiere of Dark Blood at the Olympia Theater at the Gusman Center for the Perfo (2013)](https://film.one/media/person/436544/gallery-944e6d93de8a.jpg) Director George Sluizer at the Miami International Film Festival North American Premiere of Dark Blood at the Olympia Theater at the Gusman Center for the Perfo (2013) — MiamiFilmFestival, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/29/Director_George_Sluizer.jpg/1280px-Director_George_Sluizer.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![Collectie / Archief : Fotocollectie Anefo Reportage / Serie : Nederlands/Amerikaans filmproject [met als doel een film] die in april 1982 op de Nederlandse en A (1981)](https://film.one/media/person/436544/gallery-c1c4edf25bbd.jpg) Collectie / Archief : Fotocollectie Anefo Reportage / Serie : Nederlands/Amerikaans filmproject [met als doel een film] die in april 1982 op de Nederlandse en A (1981) — Hans van Dijk for Anefo, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9d/George_Sluizer%2C_Bestanddeelnr_931-7139.jpg/1280px-George_Sluizer%2C_Bestanddeelnr_931-7139.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![Collectie / Archief : Fotocollectie Anefo Reportage / Serie : [ onbekend ] Beschrijving : Opdracht Gelderlander; filmer George Sluimer Datum : 24 november 1988 ](https://film.one/media/person/436544/gallery-ad18ba192899.jpg) Collectie / Archief : Fotocollectie Anefo Reportage / Serie : [ onbekend ] Beschrijving : Opdracht Gelderlander; filmer George Sluimer Datum : 24 november 1988  — Rob Croes for Anefo, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a4/Opdracht_Gelderlander_filmer_George_Sluimer%2C_Bestanddeelnr_934-3639.jpg/1280px-Opdracht_Gelderlander_filmer_George_Sluimer%2C_Bestanddeelnr_934-3639.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![Collectie / Archief : Fotocollectie Anefo Reportage / Serie : Nederlands/Amerikaans filmproject [met als doel een film] die in april 1982 op de Nederlandse en A (1981)](https://film.one/media/person/436544/gallery-db814dd676ab.jpg) Collectie / Archief : Fotocollectie Anefo Reportage / Serie : Nederlands/Amerikaans filmproject [met als doel een film] die in april 1982 op de Nederlandse en A (1981) — Hans van Dijk for Anefo, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/df/Regisseur_George_Sluizer_en_Helen_Colijn%2C_Bestanddeelnr_931-7136.jpg/1280px-Regisseur_George_Sluizer_en_Helen_Colijn%2C_Bestanddeelnr_931-7136.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![Collectie / Archief : Fotocollectie Anefo Reportage / Serie : [ onbekend ] Beschrijving : ANWB-prijs 1962 voor George Sluizer met voorzitter P.F. Zimmerman Datu](https://film.one/media/person/436544/gallery-34b2c5e37849.jpg) Collectie / Archief : Fotocollectie Anefo Reportage / Serie : [ onbekend ] Beschrijving : ANWB-prijs 1962 voor George Sluizer met voorzitter P.F. Zimmerman Datu — Jack de Nijs for Anefo, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/85/ANWB-prijs_1962_voor_George_Sluizer_met_voorzitter_PF_Zimmerman%2C_Bestanddeelnr_914-0280.jpg/1280px-ANWB-prijs_1962_voor_George_Sluizer_met_voorzitter_PF_Zimmerman%2C_Bestanddeelnr_914-0280.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)

## Awards

### Other awards — 3 won

- Golden Calf Special Jury Prize 2002: Golden Calf Special Jury Prize (won)
- Golden Calf for Best Feature Film 1988: Golden Calf for Best Feature Film (won)
- Golden Calf Occupation Award 1983: Golden Calf Occupation Award (won)

*From Wikidata, which records wins more completely than nominations.*

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/george-sluizer