CV/INSIGHT EXHIBITIONS/FESTIVALS PROGRESS/THANKYOU
HI,
my name is Nicolaas Jic Schmidt, I am an ordinary European guy. I like to document things of gray, but I like color gradients, too. I also like nature. As I live in a city, I’m often watching the clouds or the closed overcast sky, and all types of sunsets and nightfalls behind and above all those various walls and roofs. Right now, I am looking out the window and I see: several facades, homes, shops, a café, another bar, cars… and everywhere inside them: these people.
There are humans I somehow like, and also moments I might enjoy, but there is no time to process that, because in the hours I could, I prefer crying, lonely – “I don’t think there are words to describe…”.
My interests: mosses, plants, animals, single-celled organisms, microbiology in general, cosmos and outer space, or quantum physics. Apart from that, though, I am also enthusiastic about sunset, nightfall, wind, thunderstorms, and storms. I love watching from bed the trees outside the window swaying and rustling. And yes, the sound of ocean waves. Another one of those soothing, chaotically structured broadband noise signals, a bit harsher than the rustling of trees.
Now I instantly imagine a bench, or better yet a porch swing, at the edge of a cliff, Rügen perhaps in a wide shot, or in an even wider shot: Brittany. The swing, equipped with a thick down blanket, is aligned toward the sky above the coast. Behind it a row of tall trees, whose rustling in the wind melts into interference with the distant sound of the sea in front. The sun has just set, and the sky is slowly transitioning from pink to the blue hour.
While I can certainly appreciate movement and even dance, I am rather less interested in the human body. It is also notable that I am hardly interested in film and fiction.
I can neither dance nor even keep a rhythm, I cannot sing, I cannot whistle, I cannot wink, I cannot snap my fingers, I cannot snort like a horse – basically, I cannot do anything at all. My whole life consists only of constantly disguising these incapacities so as not to blow my cover (even though I never claimed to be capable of anything).
What I can do is: pause, persevere, observe, document, accept (without resigning). And question things, conditions, reasons, consequences, big and small, everything – to the point of total despair. All that interests me is exploring and investigating all kinds of boundaries, preferring to probe the lower limits: to avoid everything spectacular and superfluous, toward total reduction, down to the Nothing.
My hobbies are lying around, half-sleeping, dozing, immersing, and drifting off. I just like to enjoy pleasant boring stuff, but making those, that’s pretty hard. What I like less is speaking, especially with words and between the lines, and even less so in another language; it is hard enough for me to express myself and be convincing in my native language – because of all the nonverbal misunderstandings and my long pauses, details, specifications, and contextualizations when speaking (which are actually meant to avoid them).
Anyway, I think in a structured and ambivalent way. I can be punctual, ambitious, motivated, and I am neat, reliable, honest, consistent, coherent, analog, different, and also persistent – yet my strength is never enough for what others call “normal.”
ANYWAY,
at present I mainly use audiovisual collages to design stories into conceptual fictions.
I am drawn to capture these moments when the world stands still, transforming banal everyday routines into compelling, absurd, and unexpectedly dramatic cinematic experiences. Because "there are no words…", you know.
CV PDF CV PDF Portfolio
Nicolaas Schmidt is a European Gréyalisateur and Dozing Artist (Concept, Photo, Video) based in Hamburg.
He started dreaming at the age of four after visiting the movie theater in his socialist smalltown south of Leipzig for the very first time. In the years following the incorporation of the GDR into the FRG, alongside his work as a graphic designer at an advertising agency in Leipzig, he took on commercial photography projects and made half-hearted attempts to study at the local art academy (HGB). He relocated to Hamburg in 2007 to pursue studies in Mixed and Time-Based Media as well as Visual Communication / Film (with). Finally, he graduated with honors from the University of Fine Arts Hamburg (HFBK) in 2016.
Schmidt is a founding member of VETO Film, EndJoy Antitainment and Eternaltrend Intermediate, a production and distribution lab for audiovisual simplicities, that for example offers the color gradient online series "36000 Frames RGB".
Currently he is available.
His work has been presented internationally at film festivals and art institutions, including:
HKW Berlin, CWB Paris, Museum of the Moving Image New York City, Arts&Archives Los Angeles, Filmforum Museum Ludwig Köln, Hamburger Bahnhof Berlin, Locarno Film Festival, Berlin Film Festival, Singapore Film Festival, Black Canvas Film Festival Mexico City, Montreal Festival du Nouveau Cinéma, Athens Film and Video Festival, Vilnius Film Festival, Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen, Bundeskunsthalle Bonn, HMKV Kunsthalle Dortmund, Mousonturm Frankfurt/Main, Kunstverein Harburger Bahnhof, Deichtorhallen Hamburg, MK&G Hamburg, Cinemateca Portuguesa Lisbon, Cinemateca Uruguaya Montevideo, FilminLatino Instituto Mexicano de Cinematografía, Gran Lux Saint-Etienne, Filmhuis Cavia Amsterdam, Pylon-Lab Dresden, Galerie Kub and D21 Kunstraum Leipzig, Ausstellungsraum Klingental Basel, Glasgow Centre for Contemporary Arts, NNYOC Gallery and Kling&Bang Gallery Reykjavik, Schloss Kalsdorf Ilz/Graz, Kunstverein Lüneburg, Museum Wiesbaden, Garage Museum Moskow, Center of Contemporary Culture Smena Kazan, Erarta Museum St. Petersburg; as well as Goethe-Institutes (Sofia, Marseille, Bangalore, Chennai, Kolkata) and in the context of seminars and work presentations at various universities (DFFB Berlin, HFBK Hamburg, HGB Leipzig, UDK Berlin, HFF Potsdam, CAU Kiel, HBK Braunschweig, Zurich University of the Arts - Congress of the German Society for Aesthetics, BMK Hamburg, SRH Berlin, HS RheinMain Wiesbaden).
„His cinema is both rigorous and playful, demonstrating a keen sense of formal considerations while finding rich expression in minimalist forms. He brings to his work an acute understanding of the affective power of music and of cinema’s temporal possibilities.“
(Dennis Lim)
„His idiosyncratic films are a reflected and at the same time deeply sensual examination of society, space and time. By dispensing with classic dramaturgical structures, they open up new spaces of perception and allow the cinema to be conceived as a place of experience without losing sight of our critical view of today.“
(Anna Henckel-Donnersmarck)
„Loops, love and boredom. Few have appropriated the exploitation tragedy of the "long tens" to occupy the screen as neatly as Nicolaas Schmidt. In his minimal moving images, lost futures meet nostalgic satisfaction, media sadness meets sensual awareness. Almost everything about them is easy, except their consumption.
This attitude gives rise to a concentrated game with advertising, which has forgotten what it is advertising, with time, which has forgotten why it is passing, and with cinema, which has forgotten where it takes place. The romantic conceptualism of his works caresses duration, stretches and condenses it, occasionally tipping over into sensitive gestures that seem to comfortingly and intimately embrace even the most burnt-out trends of criticism.“
(Max Richter)
AWARDS/GRANTS
2025
Message To Men Intl. Film Festival St. Petersburg, Jury Diploma (In Silico - Int. Competition of Experimental Films)
BKM / FFA German Federal Film Board, Production Funding „September Afternoon“
MOIN Film Fund, Production Funding „September Afternoon“
2024
Oberhausen Intl. Short Film Festival, Special Mention (German Competition)
MOIN Film Fund, Production Funding „Something New Has Begun“ (WT)
2022
Black Canvas Film Festival, Best Film (Beyond the Canvas)
Athens Intl. Film and Video Festival, Best Narrative Feature
Sicilia Queer Intl. New Visions Filmfest, Best Feature
Sicilia Queer Intl. New Visions Filmfest, Special Mention (National Union of Italian Film Critics, SNCCI)
2021
Locarno Film Festival, Special Mention (Leopards of Tomorrow)
Bucharest Intl. Experimental Film Festival, Best Direction
Deutscher Kurzfilmpreis, Sonderpreis Mittellanger Film
Festival dei Popoli Firenze, Best Med-Lenght Film
FBW Film Predicate: Especially Valuable „Inflorescence“
FFHSH, Scenario Funding „Something New Has Begun“ (WT)
2020
Vilnius Intl. Film Festival, Special Mention (Intl. Shorts)
FFHSH, Production Funding „First Time“
2019
Preis der Nationalgalerie, Nomination Förderpreis für Filmkunst
2018
VDFK German Film Critics Award, Best Short Film 2017
Glasgow Short Film Festival, Special Mention (Intl. Competition)
Thai Short Film and Video Festival, "R.D. Pestonji Medal" (Best Short Film)
2017
Berlin Intl. Film Festival, Perspektive Special Jury Prize
First Steps German Film Academy Award, Best Medium-Length Fiction
2015
Intl. Short Film Festival Hamburg, Jury Award
2013
Karl H. Ditze Stiftung, Annual Scholarship
2011
Message To Man Intl. Film Festival St. Petersburg, Jury Diploma (In Silico - Int. Competition of Experimental Films)
FILMOGRAPHY (Script&Direction)
[ undisclosed { commission
2026
• SEPTEMBER AFTERNOON (Concept Fiction)
• LINEAR ENDJOY] (Concept Short)
[ ANOTHER NIGHT AT 11PM - SLOWREEL-04 (Riolino Short)
{ L. MEERIONE: QUEL MOMENTO (Music Video)
2025
{ L. MEERIONE: TREMBLING PAWS (Music Video)
2024
• LIKE HORSES STANDING IN THE RAIN (Docu Diary Essay)
[ NOVEMBER TRAM RIDE (Riolino Short) shelved
[ SNHB (Teaser)
2022
• CINÉMOON (Cinema Theater Installation Performance)
[ RIOLINO LEAVING KINDERGARDEN (Riolino Short) shelved
2021
• FIRST TIME [The Time For All But Sunset - VIOLET] (Concept Fiction)
2020
• INFLORESCENCE - SLOWLOOP-05
2019
• BELIEVE - SLOWREEL-03 (Docu Concept Short)
2018
{ THERNST: THE LOTTERY [Who's The Next One] (MuVi)
{ MOON ZOOM (Trailer for 34th Hamburg Intl. Short Film Festival)
{ M. MELIÁN: JARDIN EXOTIQUE (Music Video)
[ VERY NICE GRADIENTS… (Concept Short) shelved
2017
• FINAL STAGE [The Time For All But Sunset - BGYOR] (Concept Fiction)
2016
• COMPARE - SLOWLOOP-01 (*2011)
[ 36KFRGB SPECIAL 66: Bearing For Dreams (Cinematic Dream Opener)
{ WASSERMUSIK (Teaser for Michaela Melián)
2015
• AUTUMN - SLOWREEL-02 (Essay Short)
• 36KFRGB SPECIAL 29: Die Manifestation Des Kapitalismus In Unserem Leben Ist Die Traurigkeit (Color Episode Footage Collage)
2014
• 36000 FRAMES RGB [36KFRGB] (2013-2014 Color Concept Series)
• LEAVING MONOCHROMIA - SLOWREEL-01 (Essay Short)
2013
• BREAK - SLOWLOOP-04 (Slide Show Short)
• 36KFRGB - RGB/BTW [Du Und Wir] (Promo Short)
[ TEN TABLETS (Experimental Setup) shelved
2012
• FOREVER - SLOWLOOP-03
[ APPARENT WINDS (Concept Fiction) shelved
{ VERSE ZUR FURCHT (Commissional) shelved
2011
• DIE REISE MIT DER EISENBAHN HAT SICH DURCHAUS EIN WENIG GELOHNT (Diary Essay)
[ STUDIEN ZUR REKONSTRUKTION (Experim. Study) shelved
2010
• OHNE SCHLECHTES GEWISSEN GENIESSEN (Perf. Short)
• DER LAUF UND CHOPIN (Concept Short)
[ THE NICEST PLACE (Concept Docu Fiction) shelved
2009
• SENSE+INNOCENCE (Footage Concept Short)
[ EIN NEUR MORGEN (Performance Short) shelved
[ MAY I ASK (Performance Short) shelved, lost
2008
• NEUSEENLAND (Docu Essay Short)
[ GREEN GROWS THE GREY (Grey Concept Short) shelved
[ NEXT IN LINE (Doku Short) shelved
HI,
my name is Nicolaas Jic Schmidt, I am an ordinary European guy. I like to document things of gray, but I like color gradients, too. I also like nature. As I live in a city, I’m often watching the clouds or the closed overcast sky, and all types of sunsets and nightfalls behind and above all those various walls and roofs. Right now, I am looking out the window and I see: several facades, homes, shops, a café, another bar, cars… and everywhere inside them: these people.
There are humans I somehow like, and also moments I might enjoy, but there is no time to process that, because in the hours I could, I prefer crying, lonely – “I don’t think there are words to describe…”.
My interests: mosses, plants, animals, single-celled organisms, microbiology in general, cosmos and outer space, or quantum physics. Apart from that, though, I am also enthusiastic about sunset, nightfall, wind, thunderstorms, and storms. I love watching from bed the trees outside the window swaying and rustling. And yes, the sound of ocean waves. Another one of those soothing, chaotically structured broadband noise signals, a bit harsher than the rustling of trees.
Now I instantly imagine a bench, or better yet a porch swing, at the edge of a cliff, Rügen perhaps in a wide shot, or in an even wider shot: Brittany. The swing, equipped with a thick down blanket, is aligned toward the sky above the coast. Behind it a row of tall trees, whose rustling in the wind melts into interference with the distant sound of the sea in front. The sun has just set, and the sky is slowly transitioning from pink to the blue hour.
While I can certainly appreciate movement and even dance, I am rather less interested in the human body. It is also notable that I am hardly interested in film and fiction.
I can neither dance nor even keep a rhythm, I cannot sing, I cannot whistle, I cannot wink, I cannot snap my fingers, I cannot snort like a horse – basically, I cannot do anything at all. My whole life consists only of constantly disguising these incapacities so as not to blow my cover (even though I never claimed to be capable of anything).
What I can do is: pause, persevere, observe, document, accept (without resigning). And question things, conditions, reasons, consequences, big and small, everything – to the point of total despair. All that interests me is exploring and investigating all kinds of boundaries, preferring to probe the lower limits: to avoid everything spectacular and superfluous, toward total reduction, down to the Nothing.
My hobbies are lying around, half-sleeping, dozing, immersing, and drifting off. I just like to enjoy pleasant boring stuff, but making those, that’s pretty hard. What I like less is speaking, especially with words and between the lines, and even less so in another language; it is hard enough for me to express myself and be convincing in my native language – because of all the nonverbal misunderstandings and my long pauses, details, specifications, and contextualizations when speaking (which are actually meant to avoid them).
Anyway, I think in a structured and ambivalent way. I can be punctual, ambitious, motivated, and I am neat, reliable, honest, consistent, coherent, analog, different, and also persistent – yet my strength is never enough for what others call “normal.”
ANYWAY,
at present I mainly use audiovisual collages to design stories into conceptual fictions.
I am drawn to capture these moments when the world stands still, transforming banal everyday routines into compelling, absurd, and unexpectedly dramatic cinematic experiences. Because "there are no words…", you know.
CV PDF CV PDF Portfolio
Nicolaas Schmidt is a European Gréyalisateur and Dozing Artist (Concept, Photo, Video) based in Hamburg.
He started dreaming at the age of four after visiting the movie theater in his socialist smalltown south of Leipzig for the very first time. In the years following the incorporation of the GDR into the FRG, alongside his work as a graphic designer at an advertising agency in Leipzig, he took on commercial photography projects and made half-hearted attempts to study at the local art academy (HGB). He relocated to Hamburg in 2007 to pursue studies in Mixed and Time-Based Media as well as Visual Communication / Film (with). Finally, he graduated with honors from the University of Fine Arts Hamburg (HFBK) in 2016.
Schmidt is a founding member of VETO Film, EndJoy Antitainment and Eternaltrend Intermediate, a production and distribution lab for audiovisual simplicities, that for example offers the color gradient online series "36000 Frames RGB".
Currently he is available.
His work has been presented internationally at film festivals and art institutions, including:
HKW Berlin, CWB Paris, Museum of the Moving Image New York City, Arts&Archives Los Angeles, Filmforum Museum Ludwig Köln, Hamburger Bahnhof Berlin, Locarno Film Festival, Berlin Film Festival, Singapore Film Festival, Black Canvas Film Festival Mexico City, Montreal Festival du Nouveau Cinéma, Athens Film and Video Festival, Vilnius Film Festival, Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen, Bundeskunsthalle Bonn, HMKV Kunsthalle Dortmund, Mousonturm Frankfurt/Main, Kunstverein Harburger Bahnhof, Deichtorhallen Hamburg, MK&G Hamburg, Cinemateca Portuguesa Lisbon, Cinemateca Uruguaya Montevideo, FilminLatino Instituto Mexicano de Cinematografía, Gran Lux Saint-Etienne, Filmhuis Cavia Amsterdam, Pylon-Lab Dresden, Galerie Kub and D21 Kunstraum Leipzig, Ausstellungsraum Klingental Basel, Glasgow Centre for Contemporary Arts, NNYOC Gallery and Kling&Bang Gallery Reykjavik, Schloss Kalsdorf Ilz/Graz, Kunstverein Lüneburg, Museum Wiesbaden, Garage Museum Moskow, Center of Contemporary Culture Smena Kazan, Erarta Museum St. Petersburg; as well as Goethe-Institutes (Sofia, Marseille, Bangalore, Chennai, Kolkata) and in the context of seminars and work presentations at various universities (DFFB Berlin, HFBK Hamburg, HGB Leipzig, UDK Berlin, HFF Potsdam, CAU Kiel, HBK Braunschweig, Zurich University of the Arts - Congress of the German Society for Aesthetics, BMK Hamburg, SRH Berlin, HS RheinMain Wiesbaden).
„His cinema is both rigorous and playful, demonstrating a keen sense of formal considerations while finding rich expression in minimalist forms. He brings to his work an acute understanding of the affective power of music and of cinema’s temporal possibilities.“
(Dennis Lim)
„His idiosyncratic films are a reflected and at the same time deeply sensual examination of society, space and time. By dispensing with classic dramaturgical structures, they open up new spaces of perception and allow the cinema to be conceived as a place of experience without losing sight of our critical view of today.“
(Anna Henckel-Donnersmarck)
„Loops, love and boredom. Few have appropriated the exploitation tragedy of the "long tens" to occupy the screen as neatly as Nicolaas Schmidt. In his minimal moving images, lost futures meet nostalgic satisfaction, media sadness meets sensual awareness. Almost everything about them is easy, except their consumption.
This attitude gives rise to a concentrated game with advertising, which has forgotten what it is advertising, with time, which has forgotten why it is passing, and with cinema, which has forgotten where it takes place. The romantic conceptualism of his works caresses duration, stretches and condenses it, occasionally tipping over into sensitive gestures that seem to comfortingly and intimately embrace even the most burnt-out trends of criticism.“
(Max Richter)
AWARDS/GRANTS
2025
Message To Men Intl. Film Festival St. Petersburg, Jury Diploma (In Silico - Int. Competition of Experimental Films)
BKM / FFA German Federal Film Board, Production Funding „September Afternoon“
MOIN Film Fund, Production Funding „September Afternoon“
2024
Oberhausen Intl. Short Film Festival, Special Mention (German Competition)
MOIN Film Fund, Production Funding „Something New Has Begun“ (WT)
2022
Black Canvas Film Festival, Best Film (Beyond the Canvas)
Athens Intl. Film and Video Festival, Best Narrative Feature
Sicilia Queer Intl. New Visions Filmfest, Best Feature
Sicilia Queer Intl. New Visions Filmfest, Special Mention (National Union of Italian Film Critics, SNCCI)
2021
Locarno Film Festival, Special Mention (Leopards of Tomorrow)
Bucharest Intl. Experimental Film Festival, Best Direction
Deutscher Kurzfilmpreis, Sonderpreis Mittellanger Film
Festival dei Popoli Firenze, Best Med-Lenght Film
FBW Film Predicate: Especially Valuable „Inflorescence“
FFHSH, Scenario Funding „Something New Has Begun“ (WT)
2020
Vilnius Intl. Film Festival, Special Mention (Intl. Shorts)
FFHSH, Production Funding „First Time“
2019
Preis der Nationalgalerie, Nomination Förderpreis für Filmkunst
2018
VDFK German Film Critics Award, Best Short Film 2017
Glasgow Short Film Festival, Special Mention (Intl. Competition)
Thai Short Film and Video Festival, "R.D. Pestonji Medal" (Best Short Film)
2017
Berlin Intl. Film Festival, Perspektive Special Jury Prize
First Steps German Film Academy Award, Best Medium-Length Fiction
2015
Intl. Short Film Festival Hamburg, Jury Award
2013
Karl H. Ditze Stiftung, Annual Scholarship
2011
Message To Man Intl. Film Festival St. Petersburg, Jury Diploma (In Silico - Int. Competition of Experimental Films)
FILMOGRAPHY (Script&Direction)
[ undisclosed { commission
2026
• SEPTEMBER AFTERNOON (Concept Fiction)
• LINEAR ENDJOY] (Concept Short)
[ ANOTHER NIGHT AT 11PM - SLOWREEL-04 (Riolino Short)
{ L. MEERIONE: QUEL MOMENTO (Music Video)
2025
{ L. MEERIONE: TREMBLING PAWS (Music Video)
2024
• LIKE HORSES STANDING IN THE RAIN (Docu Diary Essay)
[ NOVEMBER TRAM RIDE (Riolino Short) shelved
[ SNHB (Teaser)
2022
• CINÉMOON (Cinema Theater Installation Performance)
[ RIOLINO LEAVING KINDERGARDEN (Riolino Short) shelved
2021
• FIRST TIME [The Time For All But Sunset - VIOLET] (Concept Fiction)
2020
• INFLORESCENCE - SLOWLOOP-05
2019
• BELIEVE - SLOWREEL-03 (Docu Concept Short)
2018
{ THERNST: THE LOTTERY [Who's The Next One] (MuVi)
{ MOON ZOOM (Trailer for 34th Hamburg Intl. Short Film Festival)
{ M. MELIÁN: JARDIN EXOTIQUE (Music Video)
[ VERY NICE GRADIENTS… (Concept Short) shelved
2017
• FINAL STAGE [The Time For All But Sunset - BGYOR] (Concept Fiction)
2016
• COMPARE - SLOWLOOP-01 (*2011)
[ 36KFRGB SPECIAL 66: Bearing For Dreams (Cinematic Dream Opener)
{ WASSERMUSIK (Teaser for Michaela Melián)
2015
• AUTUMN - SLOWREEL-02 (Essay Short)
• 36KFRGB SPECIAL 29: Die Manifestation Des Kapitalismus In Unserem Leben Ist Die Traurigkeit (Color Episode Footage Collage)
2014
• 36000 FRAMES RGB [36KFRGB] (2013-2014 Color Concept Series)
• LEAVING MONOCHROMIA - SLOWREEL-01 (Essay Short)
2013
• BREAK - SLOWLOOP-04 (Slide Show Short)
• 36KFRGB - RGB/BTW [Du Und Wir] (Promo Short)
[ TEN TABLETS (Experimental Setup) shelved
2012
• FOREVER - SLOWLOOP-03
[ APPARENT WINDS (Concept Fiction) shelved
{ VERSE ZUR FURCHT (Commissional) shelved
2011
• DIE REISE MIT DER EISENBAHN HAT SICH DURCHAUS EIN WENIG GELOHNT (Diary Essay)
[ STUDIEN ZUR REKONSTRUKTION (Experim. Study) shelved
2010
• OHNE SCHLECHTES GEWISSEN GENIESSEN (Perf. Short)
• DER LAUF UND CHOPIN (Concept Short)
[ THE NICEST PLACE (Concept Docu Fiction) shelved
2009
• SENSE+INNOCENCE (Footage Concept Short)
[ EIN NEUR MORGEN (Performance Short) shelved
[ MAY I ASK (Performance Short) shelved, lost
2008
• NEUSEENLAND (Docu Essay Short)
[ GREEN GROWS THE GREY (Grey Concept Short) shelved
[ NEXT IN LINE (Doku Short) shelved