1967-1968: after completing highschool, as a stagemanager for one of the biggest professional theatre companies in the Netherlands, he learns set building and stage lighting. 1968-1972: studies at the Amsterdam Academy for Dramatic Art. Is trained on the job as an assistant-director with William Gaskill at the Royal Court Theatre in London and the German directors Hagen Mueller-Stahl and Roland Kabelitsch. In the last year of his studies he specialises in television-direction. He graduates as a theatre and television director and a qualified drama teacher. 1972-1976: works as a director with various professional theatre companies. He becomes a trainee supervisor at the Amsterdam Academy for Dramatic Art. 1977-present: in 1977 he makes the switch to television directing and is employed by IKON Television as a drama/director-producer. In the same period he is a visiting lecturer at the NOS-Training Department, the Theatre Academy in Maastricht and the Dutch Film and Television Academy in Amsterdam. He directs and produces some dozen drama series and half a dozen single plays and made-for-television-movies, the major part shot with one-camera-technique on location: a total of more than 65 hours of televisiondrama. His work is awarded several national and international prizes and sold several times to foreign broadcastingcompanies. Since 1990 he writes screenplays and professional literature as well. He was a member of several national and international juries, including those of the Prix d'Italia 1985 and 1989, and served four times as a member of the jury of the Geneva-Europe Prizes for Television Writing of the EBU. He is a member of the Dutch Directors Guild DDG, Member of the Dutch Screenwriters Guild NVS/VSV, Member of LIRA and VEVAM.

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Eric Oosthoek

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