Jelle Nesna

Jelle Nesna is a director, storyteller, and creative producer with a deep love for both documentary and drama. In his work, he searches for the human core within larger systemic questions. Stories that connect, provoke, and imagine. Films where the personal and the political inevitably collide.

He directed Buiten is het Feest, a powerful film about abuse and loyalty, awarded at several international festivals and viewed by over 700,000 people in the Netherlands. Strijder (Bigman), which he co-directed with Camiel Schouwenaar, won the Cinekid Lion for Best Dutch Children's Film 2022 and became the most-watched film on Netflix in the Netherlands for several weeks.

As a creative producer and initiator, Jelle played a leading role in films such as Lucia de B. (directed by Paula van der Oest, shortlisted for the Oscars) and Rafaël (directed by Ben Sombogaart) – films in which personal stories clash with larger societal systems.

He is currently directing BIZAR, a bold youth film about children rising up against their parents who are destroying the world. And the documentary Shall We Change the World Together?, about people who aren't waiting for the system to change, but are already building a new world themselves. Farmers, soil scientists, designers, and food makers – Jelle makes their search visible. Not as utopia, but as practice.