About

Roland Dahwen is a filmmaker, writer, performer, and visual artist. He studied literature and translation before starting to work in documentary and narrative film.

At the age of twenty, he made his first short film, There are no birds in the nests of yesterday, about the whistling language of the Canary Islands, which convinced him that he wanted to pursue filmmaking. He then worked at a documentary film company, helping to make and distribute films about immigration and citizenship.

He worked on short films and video installations for several years, before directing his first narrative feature film, Borrufa.

Roland Dahwen was born in Brattleboro, Vermont, US and currently lives in Portland, Oregon. His primary hobby is gardening, with a particular affinity for palms and cycads.

Roland Dahwen has exhibited film and video work in Cuba, the Netherlands, Brazil, Italy, India, Germany, Canada, Turkey, and the US. He has given artist talks at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Reed College, Pacific Northwest College of Art, King School Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Universidade Federal Fluminense (Brazil).

His work has been supported by Oregon Arts Commission, Portland Art Museum Center for an Untold Tomorrow, Regional Arts and Culture Council, the Cooley Gallery, Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, and Seattle Art Museum. In 2018, he was awarded the Oregon Media Arts Fellowship. In 2020, he was a finalist for the Betty Bowen Award.

As a performer, he has participated in performance pieces at Portland Art Museum, Henry Art Gallery (Seattle), Lumber Room (Portland), and Portland Institute for Contemporary Art. He has served on numerous juries and panels for festivals and arts organizations, including the National Endowment for the Arts. Overseas (2019), an installation presented by Converge45 and Cooley Gallery, was acclaimed by the Oregonian as a “tour de force.” An accompanying performance piece, The Overseas Banquet, was presented at the Time Based Art Festival in 2019.

His first feature film, Borrufa, premiered at the 2020 Portland International Film Festival, in competition. Described by Portland Monthly as “oblique, withholding, and dreamlike,” Borrufa has shown in festivals across the US and abroad, is available to stream on Kanopy, and is distributed by Collective Eye Films.

Photos for media can be downloaded here, here and here (credit Vi Son Trinh), here and here (credit Padraic O’Meara), here (credit Ella Marra-Ketelaar), and the above photo here.