2007 - .....

The 2007 Masterclass of his 'Rutger Hauer Film Factory', held in January, proved to meet a strikingly positive response: seven short films (realized in 8 days by 30 young artists) premiered successfully during the Rotterdam Film Festival.

As if he wasn't busy enough, in 2007 a book of 'memoirs' entitled 'All Those Moments: Stories of Heroes, Villains, Replicants, and Blade Runners' has been published. This unprecedented and long-awaited autobiography is published by Harper Entertainment.

In September 2008, Rutger was honoured in the Netherlands with the prestigious 'Golden Calf' Culture Award. The award has been presented by Minister Ronald Plasterk. The Golden Calf Culture Award is granted by the Board of the Netherlands Film Festival Foundation to a person or organization that brought important contributions to the film culture, and for Rutger this also refers to his Rutger Hauer Film Factory initiative, as well as to his newly launched 'I've Seen Films - International Film Festival'.

In 2009, amongst other productions, Hauer starred in Lech Majewski’s “The Mill and the Cross”, inspired by the famous Pieter Breugel's painting ''The Procession to Calvary''. In the same year, he received the Dutch “Gratama” Culture Award, named after the Frisian artist Rients Gratama.

2010 sees him involved in a number of independent international productions, including ‘Portable Life’, ‘Black Butterflies’, ‘Hobo With a Shotgun’, ‘The Rite’ (this latter also starring Sir Anthony Hopkins), as well as a comeback on set with a director he is very fond of: Ermanno Olmi with his latest production ‘Il Villaggio di Cartone’ (‘The Cardboard Village’).

At the end of 2010, the third - and extremely successful! - edition of 'I've Seen Films - International Film Festival' took place in Milan from September 30 to October 9. Rutger welcomed on stage, in the Royal Palace's full-house Award Evening, many emerging authors coming from all over the world, as well as many renowned artists such as Anton Corbijn, Francesco Baccini, Mimmo Calopresti, and so on.

It's difficult to sum up Rutger's talents and skills in few lines, but once he stated, "I am an Aquarius, which means you carry the water from one person to the next, that's a spiritual thing and that's exactly what I do. You know, there are many different levels to the spirit. Films always tell one story, but below that story there is another story and I'm really into that and I try and work on a few different levels. The hardest thing is to get the level you don't see, that it's not on the surface. I hate acting when I see it. I don't want to feel it, I don't want to see it, I want to be taken away with the story. I don't want the actor's ego in front of me. That's why I try to live when I do the work. The tongue-in-cheek stuff is sort of my favourite but it doesn't come along that much. I didn't do a lot of comedy, and I think I could handle the romantic side, it's underdeveloped still. And it's also drama that I'm interested in, it's the craft that I'm interested in. What draws me basically is the story and the people who do it. When you're an actor, you're like a string and the music gets played on you. I have a gift that allows me to make people understand what I am feeling even if they can't put it in words. I have a very strange power within me, I can feel it. The rest I guess is luck and talent, and it's all in the hands of what's-its-name, I call it fate. It's not just work. It's the urge to, let's say, fulfill a certain black hole in you and you just have to follow up on it if you want to get it done. I think the only form of happiness is fulfillment - it's what everybody wants but people translate it in different ways. And there is a cosmic tide that we do not know how to handle. And there is also a psychic understanding that we don't know how to handle. Those are very strong and very present elements in the way we work. Whatever you do, there's always an element of projected fate. You know, it's like you're doing it and you are following it at the same time. I'm not going to travel if I don't feel I'm being pulled...".

1944-1969      1970-1989      1990-1999      2000-2006