<p>Ineke Smits studied Graphic Design and Photograpy at the Rotterdam Art Academy, then specialised in Film Directing at the National Film and Television School in England, supported by The British Council. She graduated in 1993 as a writer/director, and directed several shorts for Dutch Television. In 2001 she directed her first feature film, Magonia, awarded with the Golden Tulip in Istanbul, The Circulo Precolombino de Oro in Colombia, and a special Mention of the Jury at Festroia, Portugal.</p>
<p>In 2002/03 Ineke was granted a fellowship at the Nipkow Programm in Berlin to develop her second feature,The Aviatrix of Kazbek, which premiered as Closing Film at the International Film Festival Rotterdam 2010. In 2004 she developed the first draft of a feature in development stage, The House of my Fathers, at the Binger Institute in Amsterdam. She is also developing another feature script, N.N., with script writer and film critic Dana Linssen.</p>
<p>In 2003 Ineke made the Award-winning documentary Putin’s Mama. Her second documentary, Black Gold under Notecka Forest, premiered in the Silver Wolf Competition at the IDFA documentary film festival in Amsterdam, 2005. Her third documentary, Transit Dubai, which premiered at IDFA in 2008, and won the Audience Award at Gdansk FF.</p>
<p>Next to directing and writing fiction- and documentary films, she is a script advisor, project developer and a workshop tutor at post-graduate art- and film studies.</p>