Elles van Velzen

Elles van Velzen is a Dutch actress, Producer and Director known for Moord voor Jeugd, Fabula, Gedicht and Impossible Love. As a little girl she was already on stage as a ballet dancer. Among others with greats like Han Ebbelaar and Alexandra Radius. Thanks to the ballet, Elles got acting lessons early and she discovered that acting is her true passion. From the age of 12 Elles played in various theater pieces. After completing her theater education she continued to train and take lessons from, among others Johanna ter Steege, Camilla Siegertsz and Ruud van Hemert. Since 2001 she has been focusing more and more on film, partly on the advice of Van Hemert. Van Hemert has been very important in her development as a film actress and later as a director. Elles received a lot of praise for the role of mother with an anti social personality disorder in Murder Women, but also for roles in various corporate and information films and (main) roles in various shorts as Path of Adel, What can you still do ?, Village Habits, Le Reste, Is that what fascinates me? and Nightshot (Nomination best actress) In addition, Elles played in several shorts that she also produced, including De Fan (Nomination best actress 48hr NFF) and Gedicht (with opponent Peter Post). This film was runner up and played at the Dutch Film Festival and at the Cannes Film Festival. In the past years, Elles has therefore increasingly focused on producing and making films. Her years of experience as an actress together with her great creativity in coming up with concepts come into its own. She is currently working on the post production for the short Circles (director: Tamara Miranda), a short film about mourning. Other films that Elles has produced include: For the Children, Brainstorm, Road and the Trailer for Strangers and Fabula (director: Anouk Briefjes) in which Elles can also be seen as the quirky she-wolf Anna. In recent years, Elles has started to focus on directing films because she felt more and more willing to tell stories on her way. Elles has worked with Ron Toekook twice before in the films' Murder for Youth and Petra Impatience. This collaboration pleased both so well that they have once again joined hands with a story that Elles had written several years ago, 'Impossible Love'. Elles has now directed various films and series, including 'Disconnected', 'Voor Elkaar' and 'Binnenskamers'. In addition to work as an actress and director, Elles is also involved in telling stories in a different way. Namely with photo stories. Including 'Rococo in Intimate Spheres' which was exhibited in the Castle Groeneveld. Partly urged by the success of this, Elles is working on a new photo series, which will be about Strong women from History. Here, strong women of today will represent strong historical women, accompanied by their personal life stories. Besides all this, Elles is also an experienced training actress and trainer and is mainly active in education, health care and psychiatry.