The photographer and director Anton Johannes Gerrit Corbijn van Willenswaard, was born on May 20, 1955 in the city of Strijen (Holland) where his father, a Protestant pastor, was in charge of the local church. Later this work led him to reside in the cities of Hoogland and Groningen, each time moving his wife Marietje Groeneboer and their four children.
The race of Anton It began in 1972 when he borrowed his father’s camera to go to a concert by the band Solution, immortalizing the pop band, with his flash.
Fascinated by the world of music, in 1979 he moved to London where he began to frequent the post-punk environment, collaborating with the New Musical Express, the largest British music weekly; A few years later, his photos were already in magazines such as Vogue, Rolling Stone, Us, Details, and Entertainment Weekly.
The style of Corbijn ends up influencing two bands that took flight in those years, U2 and Depeche Mode; the photographer practically invented their look and launched them onto the international stage.
During the same period he also became interested in video production and directed his first music clips (to date he has more than 60) that later marked his professional growth.
In 1993 he won the MTV Music Award for Heart Shaped Box of Nirvana (Best Video of the Year), in 1994 it received the Dutch Award for Photography and in 1995 it received a Grammy nomination for Devotional by Depeche Mode (Best Music Video).
His short film “Some YoYo Stuff“, made in 1993 for the BBC, gave the world a unique document of Don Van Vliet, aka Captain Beefheart, one of the greatest and” unreachable “exponents of rock, who retired from the music scene in 1982.
Other productions of Corbijn include the videos “One Night in Paris“(2002) by Depeche Mode and video clips of Travis (Re-offender, 2003), The Killers (All These Things That I’ve Done, 2005), and Coldplay (Talk, 2005). He also directed the video documentaries”U2: The Best of 1990-20002” Y “Metallica: The Videos 1989-2004“.
In 2007 he directed his first feature film, it was “Control“, the story of Ian Curtis, the elenigmatic Joy Division singer, who committed suicide at age 23. Starring Sam Riley, both Corbijn like the film and its performers, they won numerous international awards. His next feature film was “The American”, a thriller starring George Clooney, released in 2010; followed by The Most Wanted Man “in 2014.
His latest work not yet released is the feature film “Life”, a story about a photographer who must take pictures of the actor James Dean for the legendary magazine. Starring Dane DeHaan, Robert Pattinson and Joel Edgerton, its Spanish premiere scheduled for 2015.