Claessen attended the Netherlands Film Academy (Dutch: Nederlandse Filmacademie) in Amsterdam.

In 1983, he shot Haute Mer, directed by French filmmaker Edgardo Cozarinsky.

They have collaborated on four films together: including the award-winning The Rosa Parks Story, Love Song (2000), Brothers of the Borderland (2004), and Travel Notes of a Geechee Girl (2016).

[2] In 1986, Claessen moved to the United States where he met Whoopi Goldberg during production of a documentary entitled Who Are They?

[3] Claessen married American writer and photographer Taiye Selasi in 2013; the couple divorced in 2015.