Leonard Retel Helmrich (16 August 1959 – 15 July 2023) was a Dutch cinematographer and film director.

[1] On June 5, 2018, he was awarded with the title Knight in the Order of the Netherlands Lion by the Dutch King Willem-Alexander.

His first documentary, Moving Objects (1991), was awarded the Special Jury Prize for the Best Artist-Profile at the International Golden Gate Film Festival of San Francisco.

[3] After finishing Moving Objects, he decided to travel to Indonesia where his parents were born, with the idea to show people around the world what was happening in this country.

With the help of the Dutch Embassy and his brother Anton, who happened to be in Indonesia, he was released after a few days.

However, he was expelled from the country with the status persona non grata meaning he would no longer be allowed to visit Indonesia even though he was able to return 2 years later.

[4] Leonard Retel Helmrich traveled to Kansas City, Missouri, to work with the Institute of Art in developing the principles of single shot cinema.

In 1997, his brother succeeded in convincing the Indonesian government to change his persona non grata status, and Leonard Retel Helmrich was allowed to return to finish his work.

Many journalists were reporting the fall of Suharto and Helmrich wanted to focus on the micro-aspects of the changes by following an Indonesian family in one of Jakarta's slums.

The rapid changes in politics and religion during that period, including Islamization, increases in poverty, social injustice, globalization, criminality, and corruption affected every Indonesian in their daily life.

In January 2011 he won again at Sundance where he received the World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Prize for Position Among the Stars.

Just like the surface of water, which is never completely motionless.”[9] The idea is to use fast and slow, high and low, close and far camera movements in a single shot within a scene.

To maintain shot stability, Leonard created a device called the Comodo Orbit for mounting the camera.

[10] By facilitating free movement within a space, this technique permits filming from diverse and sometimes unconventional angles, enabling close-up shots of both people and animals.

He describes camera movement in Italian neorealism as having a human quality, as a projection of the hand and the eye, almost like a living part of the operator flowing directly from his awareness.