
Peter Greenaway
Peter Greenaway, CBE (born 5 April 1942) is a Welsh writer-director, painter, and video artist based in Amsterdam. Throughout the late 1960s and '70s, he produced several experimental documentary/mockumentary shorts while working as a film editor for the Central Office of Information. This early period culminated in "The Falls" (1980), a three-hour mockumentary indexing the strange effects of the VUE (the Violent Unknown Event) on 92 people whose names begin with the letters F-A-L-L. He made his dramatic feature film debut with "The Draughtsman's Contract" (1982), and throughout the 1980s directed a string of critically acclaimed and frequently controversial films: "A Zed & Two Noughts" (1985), "The Belly of an Architect" (1987), "Drowning by Numbers" (1988), and his best-known work, the vicious Thatcher-era satire "The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover" (1989). In the 1990s, he directed the Shakespeare adaptation "Prospero's Books" (1991), controversial religious satire "The Baby of Mâcon" (1993), erotic drama "The Pillow Book" (1996), and "8½ Women" (1999), an homage to the films of Federico Fellini, a major influence on Greenaway. In the early 2000s, Greenaway embarked on the ambitious "Tulse Luper" project, a multimedia body of historical fiction revolving around the life of the eponymous fictional hero. In addition to novels, CD-ROMs, online material, and a touring exhibition, the project spawned a trilogy of feature films: "The Tulse Luper Suitcases, Part 1: The Moab Story" (2003), "The Tulse Luper Suitcases, Part 2: Vaux to the Sea" (2004), and "The Tulse Luper Suitcases, Part 3: From Sark to the Finish" (2004). The trilogy was followed by a fourth feature, "A Life in Suitcases" (2005), which abridges the Tulse Luper saga into a single film. Since the mid 2000s, Greenaway's film work has focused on idiosyncratic, heavily fictionalised biopics dedicated to some of his favourite artists: Dutch Golden Age painter Rembrandt van Rijn in "Nightwatching" (2007), Dutch Baroque engraver Hendrik Goltzius in "Goltzius and the Pelican Company" (2012), Soviet Russian filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein in "Eisenstein in Guanajuato" (2015), and Romanian-French sculptor Constantin Brâncuși in "Walking to Paris" (TBD). Greenaway has lived and worked in Amsterdam since the mid 1990s. He is married to artist Saskia Boddeke, with whom he has two children. He also has two children from a previous marriage to potter Carol Greenaway.
17
Films
1
TV Shows
69
Crew Credits
Known For
18 Credits
Kulturplatz
as Self
2004

8 ½ Women
as (uncredited)
1999

Rembrandt's J'Accuse...!
as Himself / Public Prosecutor
2008

Cinema16: British Short Films
as Self - Commentary, Dear Phone (voice)
2003

Windows
as Narrator
1974

The Falls
as Interviewer
1982

Ritratti di cinema
as Self
2025

The Wedding at Cana
as Some characters (uncredited)
2009

Dear Phone
as Narrator
1976

Tintoretto: A Rebel in Venice
as Self
2019

The Curious World of Hieronymus Bosch
2016

The Greenaway Alphabet
as Peter Greenaway
2018
Behind the Camera
69 Credits
Nightwatching
Director, Writer
2007

8 ½ Women
Director
1999

The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover
Director
1989

Blondi
Writer
2025

Rosa
Director
1992

The Pillow Book
Director, Writer
1995

Darwin
Director, Writer
1992

Water Wrackets
Director, Writer
1978

Walking to Paris
Director, Writer

The Belly of an Architect
Director, Writer
1987

The Draughtsman's Contract
Director
1982

Lumière & Company
Director
1995