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Tirza is Dutch Oscar entry

Tirza by Rudolf van den Berg based on Arnon Grunberg's novel of the same name has been chosen as the film that will be sent to Los Angeles as the Dutch entry for the Oscars in the best foreign film category. Holland Film announced today. In this grim drama, Gijs Scholten van Aschat plays a man who, after a failed marriage,... 

Opening #TF2010: 'Theatre should be at the forefront of discussion on society, instead of being dictated to by prevailing mores.'

On 2 September 2010, actress, writer, theatre and television producer Joan Nederlof opened the Dutch Theatre Festival with a speech that was as entertaining as it was provocative. As it was her turn to pronounce the annual 'State of the Theatre', Nederlof, born in 1962, seized the opportunity to call on her own generation to take a stand in the social debate. She did so in her own relatable way, known for her roles on TV (Deer Park) and in the theatre (Inside Out):

Drama is much more suited to interpret history than film. @RvanH writes essay on Hannah and Martin at #TF2010

Hannah and Martin by Mugmetdegoudentand is not only a heartwarming performance, played by one phenomenal actress and one inimitable theatre personality, it is also a brainteaser. Trouw reviewer and theatre scholar Robbert van Heuven felt challenged to write a short essay in response to this performance.

First ACT Award presented to casting legend Hans Kemna: 'I didn't want to come at all' #tf2010

Everyone wants to kiss him for a moment. Hans Kemna, shining centre of the 'book ball for actors', has just won the very first ACT Award. The award was presented at Amsterdam's Stadsschouwburg, during the ACT gala, the prologue to the Dutch Theatre Festival.

The downsides of a Twitter success: trending topic spam on museum action #askacurator

It was a wonderful idea, but it is already, halfway through the day, in danger of falling victim to that same success. #askacurator, The Twitter campaign of more than three hundred museums from around the world, whereby internet users can ask questions to museum directors, is suffering from an onslaught of viagra, porn and other nonsense sellers. After all, that type of internet entrepreneur is figuring out what topics... 

The only governing party with a coherent vision on culture is the PVV, reports the Green Left at the Paradiso Debate.

Sound recording available to listen to here!

You will hear successively Axel Rüger, director of the Rijksmuseum Vincent van Gogh, responding to the assertion made by VVD member Mark Harbers that the art world is not entrepreneurial enough. This is followed by responses from former CDA culture spokesperson Nicolien van Vroonhoven (consistently called Nicolien van Vroemhoven by presenter Twan Huys) and former NNT actor Boris van der Ham, now culture spokesperson for D66.

Maxima opens new home for youth opera house Holland Opera on 3 October

Indeed, the name Xynix was somewhat outdated. And since, thanks to the efforts of its own company and Yo! Opera, which started as a youth opera festival, opera nowadays turns out to be suitable for young people too, a more adult name is appropriate: Holland Opera. The company settled in Amersfoort in a former company building near the railway station: De Verensmederij. The building, after a renovation, is... 

Benjamin Verdonck opens Flemish Theatre Festival: artists must be environmentally aware #tf2010

We had completely forgotten about the environment. While the streets in the Netherlands are flooded and some Dutch people are already talking about Pakistani conditions, here the talk is mainly about looming austerity measures and disintegrating Christian Democrat power blocks. 'Artists of today must relate to environmental issues' is therefore a comment we do not expect to hear from an artist in the Netherlands. We... 

This is my father: flaming stab at anti-Semitism to be seen on #tf2010

In This is my father, young theatre-maker Ilay den Boer (1986) literally puts his own father in the spotlight. He does so by giving his father the lead role in a performance that is all about him. This results in intimate and voyeuristic theatre.
Before the performance, you will be given a booklet describing the life of Gert den Boer. Based on dates and events, visitors can ask questions to the men on stage. Father and son answer, open doors and tell anecdotes. But what if it turns out that they handle some events very differently? Where Jewish Ilay sees signs of anti-Semitism, his own reformed father recognises an innocent incident. How differently do father and son view issues like discrimination or hatred?

The Dodo spreads its wings in dire times for subsidised art

Dan moet je net Twan Huys hebben. De presentator van Nova die in een paar schoolmeestervragen alle verkiezingsambities van Job Cohen om zeep wist te helpen. Hij zal zondag 29 augustus dezelfde truc kunnen gaan uithalen met een paar linkse politici en kunstbobo’s in het traditionele Uitmarktdebat in Paradiso.

Museum Belvedere: 'Floods in Pakistan, forest fires in Moscow, a cabinet tolerated by Wilders. How lousy can a landscape be?'

‘In dit museum hemelen we het landschap zo vaak op, dat we nu eens de destructie, de ontreddering en de dreigende verandering van het landschap wilden laten zien.’ Volgens Han Steenbruggen, directeur van Museum Belvedere in Heerenveen-Oranjewoud, werd het tijd voor expositie die toont wat oorlog, natuurrampen en klimaatverandering met het landschap doen: ‘Met deze tentoonstelling reflecteren en reageren we… 

Branden: legendary top theatre to be seen again in Amsterdam #tf2010

The destructive power of war and hatred

Writer Wajdi Mouawad (b. 1968) fled his native Lebanon at the age of nine. At the time, a brutal civil war had been raging there for years. Together with his family, he ended up in Canada via France.

There, he develops into an internationally renowned playwright. His work is now performed all over the world. The Ro Theatre introduced Mouawad to the Netherlands for the first time this theatre season.

Regisseur Alize Zandwijk koos voor het stuk Branden en zet een gewaagde en overtuigende versie op de planken. Bijgestaan door een talentvolle cast van actrices en acteurs. Je ziet de moeder Nawal Marwan en haar tweeling Jeanne en Simon. Nawal is stervende.

Museums' first global Twitter action: The Cultural Press Agency is there and reports

1 September is 'Askacurator day'. Already more than 100 museums in now 14 countries are putting their curators at the computer on that day to answer questions from internet users. It is a first. Never before has such an askacurator day been available worldwide, and never before have internet users been given access to the people behind museums such as the Tate Modern, Van... 

'What is that turd doing on your plinth?' Museums again take lead on social networks with 'ask a curator'

Paul McCarthy - Shit pile (2007)

Back in February this year, you could add museums worldwide to your Twitter lists thanks to #followamueum, and now they have come up with another new thing. It's unprecedented, and very simple. On 1 September next, anyone, anywhere in the world, can ask questions to people who know about art. Only condition: that you are on twitter sits and knows where the 'hashtag' button is. Because with the 'hashtag' #askacurator ask your question to a museum conductor or exhibition maker, and by using the search function on the twitter website, or in a twitter program like Tweetdeck, searching for that same #askacurator, you can follow anyone with such a question, and also keep track of their answers.

Spectacle group Vis à Vis gives every space to the imagination and outdoes itself in dream show Silo8

Flying nurses. We don't look up to that anymore. We have all seen Mary Poppins. The fact that at Vis a Vis, near Almere beach, instead of invisible strings they deploy a 50-metre-high construction crane for such a special turnout is spectacular and fun then, but nothing more. Matter of money and resources. The next show does have... 

Uncle Boonmee at festival World Cinema Amsterdam

By Leo Bankersen

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, this year's surprise Golden Palm winner, will get its first Dutch screening at the new festival World Cinema Amsterdam next weekend. The Cannes jury had caused some noise with this choice even among critics. After all, was this ghost story by the Thai filmmaker with the unpronounceable name now a dull and obscure film, or rather a cinematic masterpiece?

The International Choice of Rotterdam Theatre on location

Rotterdam is renovating its theatre into something that should be cosy in its Jan Versewyveld way with lots of wood. The International Choice, the increasingly exciting season opener by Quist's Kist, as the building opposite the Pathé multiplex on schouwburgplein is called, can therefore be seen everywhere except the theatre. Last-minute searches for locations are ongoing.... 

On to Theatre Festival TF and International Choice Rotterdam Theatre

  The Dodo has had its baptism of fire. We now know what the basics are, and therefore what can be improved. and of course there will be others with even more suggestions. We're going to take all that into our tents this July, think and sleep on that and then go with the new insights.... 

A Don Giovanni without Don before it, without scruples and without illusions, but with a few naked women. #hf10

 By Wijbrand Schaap Once in a while, a theatre director stands up who wants to expose the emptiness around him or her. That it is about the emptiness within him (or her) himself, this young director usually finds out some 20 years later, once it has become a little less empty. That's how these things go. We... 

Shukshin's Stories: a 'gypsy boy-with-trane' painting by a grand master. #hf10

The Russian soul. So there is something about that. And you get something from that when you see a Chekhov play (if done well), or read one of his short stories. Or when you read the works of Tolstoi, Dostoevsky or any other inhabitant of that vast nothingness east of Poland. Or seeing the paintings, which a few... 

Teleac course on muezzin singing delivers little deeper insight #hf10

 Above, fun audio from the Holland Festival. We went to watch and listen at this performance. Afterwards, we talked to actor Sabri Saad el Hamus and reviewer Martin Schouten. They had their own views on this play, which was announced as follows: Cairo is the city with thirty thousand minarets. Here you can hear five times a day above the... 

Oerol arrives. Competition for Holland Festival on scarce arts pages in Festivalland #hf10

 The Marathon Effect is well known: put spectators together in a theatre for half a day or more, preferably on uncomfortable seats, and hand them over to a couple of actors with a play. Success seems assured, and the ancient Greeks already knew that. So that there would be no discord surrounding the monster project I Demoni, the Dostoevsky adaptation of Peter... 

Demoni by Peter Stein: Masterpiece leads to masterpiece #hf10

 After a 12-hour theatre marathon, what can be said? That it was good? Good. It can. That it was rare? Also true. That it takes a director in his 70s to stage a Russian novel with such calmness, and that it takes such phenomenal actors to keep the audience hooked for 11 hours to the not-very... 

'Calliope writes very essential notes'. Premiere Greek Love Songs by Calliope Tsoupaki #hf10

 Image report: Ellen Segeren A few years ago, Greek-Dutch composer Calliope Tsoupaki wrote songs with piano accompaniment for Greek singer Nena Venetsanou. Some of these Tsoupaki arranged for the four brass players of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Brass Soloists and the four singers of the Egidius Quartet, whose tenor part is filled in for this occasion by Marcel Beekman. For him, Tsoupaki also wrote... 

De Keersemaeker sinks through the bottom of what is still dance in '3Abschied'

 Text Maarten Baanders (photo Herman Sorgeloos) After sensory work had already been reduced to a minimum in Keeping Still - Part I and The Song, dance philosopher Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker confronts the most extreme reduction possible in life in the final part of the trilogy, 3Abschied: death. Her choice of music strikes again Der... 

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