Filmmaker An van. Dienderen works at the intersection between documentary, anthropology and visual arts. While exploring various documentary strategies and the relation between self and other, she also investigates the medium of film in a self-reflective way. She investigates the opposition of fact and fiction, imagination and observation, speculation and experience, using the importance of the image in our multicultural society as a point of departure. Her work shows the absurd, poetic, messy, uncomfortable and often touching stories that these oppositions can hold in everyday life.  

She graduated in audiovisual arts (Sint-Lukas, Brussels), obtained a PhD in Comparative Cultural Sciences (Ghent University), and was a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley with Trinh Minh-ha. She made several documentaries screened worldwide, awarded with (inter)national prizes. Her work has been shown at the New York film festival, FID Marseille, DocFest Sheffield, Videonale Bonn, International Filmfestival Rotterdam, CPH: DOX Copenhague, BFI festival London, 25 FPS Festival Zagreb, MoMa NY, Centre Pompidou Paris, Courtisane.. Her work has been reviewed by The Guardian, The New York Times, The International Cinephile Society, Women and Hollywood, Award Watch, De Morgen, Knack, De Standaard,.. 

She is a lecturer & artistic researcher at KASK & Conservatorium (HOGENT-Howest), continuously conducting research projects since 2008. Research topics deal with transdisciplinary subjects such as the racist bias in technology, speculative documentary, collaborative practices, the tension between artistic and ethnographic research, critique of (western) representational regimes of previously colonized communities,.. She also works as a promoter of PhD candidates, initiated research groups and is a member of advisory research commissions.