Biography
Matthijs van Heijningen is a Dutch film producer. Born on 17 April 1944 in Alphen aan den Rijn, he studied drama theory in Berlin. In the early 1960s he moved to Amsterdam, where he worked briefly as a mime player and actor before becoming director of the theatre Sigma Centre. He later produced the children's television series De Fabeltjeskrant and worked on international projects in the Netherlands.
In 1974 he founded Sigma Films (later Sigma Pictures) as an independent production company. He has produced more than forty feature films, including literary adaptations and commercial successes such as A Question of Silence (1982), The Lift (1983), Ciske the Rat (1984), Orlando (1992, co-producer), For a Lost Soldier (1992), and The Gang of Oss (2011). He has received several Golden Calf awards for best film and the Culture Prize in 1999.
Van Heijningen has maintained long-term collaborations with directors including Marleen Gorris, Nouchka van Brakel, Ate de Jong and Dick Maas, often working with his partner Guurtje Buddenberg.
