Cinedans FEST '24

Cinedans exists 20 years! The anniversary edition Cinedans FEST '24 will take place from 20 to 24 March at Eye Filmmuseum in Amsterdam and online from 20 to 31 March on Cinedans WEB.
For five days, Eye is dedicated to international dance film with special highlights and premieres, including the arrival of special guest Celia Rowlson-Hall which presents a masterclass and film programme, a special film programme with a postcolonial theme Breaking the Chainsand, of course, the presentation of the international dance film awards!

Cinedans is the international platform that has focused entirely on dance film since 2003, convinced that the genre has contemporary expressiveness: physical, visual, dynamic and poetic at the same time. The dance film is characterised by a powerful visual language in which the body speaks, drawing the audience into a story without words.

Cinedans FEST '24 shows include the following programmes:

International shorts competition

Featuring the best international dance shorts from the past year and a half. Ranging in length from 1 to 25 minutes, the shorts are presented in one-hour programmes and conclude with a Q&A with the makers and audience. Cinedans received more than 300 submissions from 44 countries! With six programmes and 34 International short films, we will show the likes of Alexander Ekman, Jefta van Dinther, Tanin Torabi, Samatha Shay, Alain Lake, Dimitri Sterkens and Scottish Ballet.

An international jury awards the following prizes, the highest in the international dance film field:

• Cinedans Jury Award 2024 / €5,000 for Best Short Dance Film up to 25'
• Cinedans Incentive Award 2024 / € 2,000 for the most promising Dance Short
• In addition, we are reaching out to the audience awards out for best short dance film and best documentary.

New Dutch

The dance film is in vogue among Dutch makers and excelling! From 65 submissions, we are putting together three shorts programmes. Among others, we show shorts by Amos Ben Tal, Kevin Osepa, Miloushka Bokma, Imre van Opstal and Emma Evelein. And we celebrate the 10th anniversary of the National Ballet's Junior Company. A special Dutch premiere: Q5: THE QUINTESSENTIALS A Waacking Movie Series from choreographer Sarita Saradaand director Jelle Posthuma. Q5 consists of 5 short films is inspired by the energy and expressiveness of Waacking: a dance form created as an expression of oppression in the Latino and African-American LGBTQI+ underground clubs of Los Angeles in the 1970s.

Special Breaking the Chains

In this special, we show films with postcolonial themes in which dance plays a prominent role. From different (historical) perspectives and countries, they paint a picture of ancestral rituals, independence struggles, spirituality and about how the effects of slavery continue into the present. Today, in the diaspora, dance and ritual still play a crucial role in the process of healing and reconciliation. Includes the following films: Kite Zo A : laisse les os (Leave the bones) directed by Kaveh Nabatian. Film about the Vodou rituals as pillars of Haitian culture and its resistance to external oppression, poverty and natural disasters. Also takes place the world premiere of Kankantri the silk cotton tree direction & choreographyGabri Christa. The film is inspired by Christa's research into her Surinamese father's ancestors and the country's various dances and rituals.

Special Guest Celia Rowlson-Hall: Masterclass and film programme

Celia Rowlson-Hall (US) is a multidisciplinary artist telling contemporary stories in which she mixes modern dance and film, creating a genre all her own. She began her career as a professional dancer, but soon switched to choreographing for film and television. Lauded artist Rowlson - Hall moves in both the commercial and arts fields and has won several international awards, including at the Venice Film Festival. She has worked for Netflix and HBO and created choreography for artists such as Alicia Keys, Coldplay and many others. Her film installation First Snow from 2022 was named the largest digital installation in the world by Times Square Arts. She is currently working on her second feature film. Celia will reveal her unique working methods and experiences in a Masterclass. We will also present some exceptional films from her rich oeuvre.

Special Embrace the messiness / Ria Higler and 50th anniversary of the SNDO

Ria Higler was one of nine students who graduated in 1978 from the school that would later become the famous School for New Dance Development of the Amsterdam School of the Arts. From 1981, Ria started teaching at the SNDO with the adage: 'embrace the messiness'. To honour her and celebrate the 50th anniversary of the SNDO, Cinedans, together with the AHK/SNDO, is organising a special film programme with film work by alumni of the SNDO and archive material.

Special Helena Jonsdottir brings: ICELAND IN THE EYE

Helena Jonsdottir is director of the Physical Cinema Festival in Reykjavik where she presents a combination of performance, visual art, sound design, music and film. For Cinedans, she presents a selection of exceptional films from the past decades from Iceland that focus on the body.

Special The BEST of 20 years Cinedans FEST

Special film programme featuring the very best dance films from 20 years of Cinedans, compiled by (former) staff, partners and friends of Cinedans. The selection can also be visited for free throughout the festival as an installation in Eye's Arena.

An important part of FEST '24 is the Moving Media LAB (MML) organised from 18 to 24 March at nearby A Lab. The MML is a development project of 14 interdisciplinary artists conducting artistic content research using technology. The LAB is open to the public.

The programme is complemented by an extensive peripheral programme With lectures, workshops, Pitch, VR, Installations among others.Civil Twilight (2023) by Tilt (Andrea Božić & Julia Willms).

Cinedans FEST brings together past, present and future of dance film and operates from four pillars: Cinedans FEST, Cinedans LAB, Cinedans TOUR and Cinedans WEB.