“The Greenaway Alphabet” by Saskia Boddeke

2017 · NL · colour · En · 70’

A blueprint of the life of filmmaker Peter Greenaway arranged in an alphabet, through playful conversations with his daughter Zoë.

The fascinations of filmmaker Peter Greenaway, whose motto is “art is life and life is art,”are captured like butterflies and arranged in an alphabet, a form that suits him perfectly as an encyclopedist. In intimate conversations with his perceptive 16-year-old daughter Zoë, we discover the whos, whats and whys about Greenaway. They begin with A, which stands for Amsterdam, but could also stand for autism, Zoë suggests. Greenaway’s boundless creativity, unconstrained flow of words and passion for collecting certainly bring this to mind, and he admits to wearing the label with pride. The playful conversations don’t shy away from more painful topics; we hear that Greenaway hasn’t seen two other children of his for years. And later, heartbroken and in tears, Zoë asks him if for once he’ll stop talking like a commentator. Zoë’s spontaneous questions penetrate Greenaway to the core, enabling his wife, multimedia artist Saskia Boddeke, to make a deeply personal portrait not only of the artist, but also of Greenaway the father in his battle against time.

The artist

Saskia Boddeke, born in Castricum, is an innovative Dutch multimedia artist and director. From 1984 Saskia worked at the Netherlands Opera as an assistant director on 48 international opera productions with directors like Dario Fo, Peter Stein and Pierre Audi. Her first collaboration with Peter Greenaway as co-director was on the making of the music theatre performance and film, ‘Rosa, a horse drama’ (1992), which was followed up 2 years later with the very successful ‘Writing to Vermeer’.

Over the last 28 years she has developed a language embracing the use of multiple screen projections, sophisticated computer programming and virtual phenomenon like Second Life. Saskia uses these techniques richly within live performance and artistic installations. Her multimedia installations and performances are shown around the world, from New York to Adelaide. Saskia’s installations are immersive experiences. She surrounds the visitors with projections, sounds, light, smells and art objects, like ‘Obedience’ in 2015 an installation in 15 rooms at the Jewish Museum of Berlin and the opera ‘Giovanna d’Arco’ in 2016 at the Teatro Farnese at the Verdi Festival of Parma. This work was nominated as ‘Best new production 2017’ by the International Opera Award.