A life in three acts is an apt way to describe the journey of Henk Van der Kolk. Born in the town of Zwolle 80 miles north-east of Amsterdam, Van der Kolk now lives between Toronto – where he emigrated in 1967 to avoid Dutch military service – and Panama City, his part-time residence for the past two years. “Canada had a strong wartime relationship with Holland back then,” says Van der Kolk, who was a husband and father of three within five years of his arrival in North America.
In both Canada and Panama, Van der Kolk has used film as a vehicle for professional success and cultural integration. In 1976, Van der Kolk – then a small-scale film-maker – co-founded the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), which now rivals Cannes as the cinema industry’s most important annual gathering. More than 35 years later, Van der Kolk helped launch the International Film Festival Panama (IFFP) this past April and May. Inspired by Latin America’s under-appreciated cinema industry, the inaugural IFFP attracted more than 17,000 viewers to some 50 films from throughout the Americas, Europe, Asia and the Middle East.
Developing a film festival was the last thing Van der Kolk intended when he first arrived in Panama in 2010 to see his adult daughter Yolanda. “My wife Yanka and I fell in love with the place and immediately felt like we wanted to stay here,” explains Van der Kolk. “Unlike in Canada, it never gets cold in Panama,” he adds, “and the country has this easy, Caribbean-like pacing.”