Koen Suidgeest (Amsterdam, 1967) is a filmmaker, photographer, and university teacher. A 1995 honours graduate of the University of the Creative Arts in England, Koen started his career as a cinematographer. After a short but successful stint in producing and creating fiction, from 2002, he has dedicated his time primarily to creating documentary film and photography.
 
Koen’s work explores human fragility by engaging with people who are tested by extraordinary events. He likes to observe without judging and is known for his ability to get close to his interlocutors. With his documentary Casting (2006), he became the first Dutch filmmaker to be nominated for a Spanish Academy Award (Goya). His multiple award-winning film Karla’s Arrival (2011) was selected for over 45 film festivals, broadcast in 15 countries, and won him widespread international recognition. Koen’s first photo exhibition, Costuras a flor de piel (2014), travelled for four years through five countries. 
 
As a recurring collaborator of the Human Rights in the Picture Foundation, Koen authored two documentaries on LGBTQ rights, Out & About (2016) and m/f/x (2019). Both have travelled extensively as tools for activism and education. Out of the latter came his latest photo exhibition, Preferred Pronouns, a collection of portraits of transgender individuals from different corners of the world.
 
In January of 2020, Koen published his first photo book, Why I Cry On Airplanes. The book is a personal journey through 15 years of photography from all over the world.
 
Koen teaches lens-based media at a variety of universities, among which is Breda University of Applied Science (ongoing), as well as the Institute of Cultural Anthropology at Leiden University, where he was a supervisor and lecturer for its MSc in Visual Ethnography. He is a sought-after tutor for international writing, pitching and impact workshops, and served on the jury of several film festivals. As a public speaker, Koen gave his first TED talk in 2015.
 
In 2021, Koen was awarded the distinction of City Photographer of Leiden, an annual honorary position that enabled him to develop an image-based project whose progress is published weekly in the regional newspaper, Leidsch Dagblad, as well as online.