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Leo Bankersen

Leo Bankersen has been writing about film since Chinatown and Night of the Living Dead. Reviewed as a freelance film journalist for the GPD for a long time. Is now, among other things, one of the regular contributors to De Filmkrant. Likes to break a lance for children's films, documentaries and films from non-Western countries. Other specialities: digital issues and film education.

The tough weather in hard numbers - economic research Dutch film industry

Are these the figures that will make it clear to Minister Kamp that incentives for the film industry really need to happen? That hope could be heard during the discussion of a report by Oxford Economics implemented research to the economic position of the Dutch film and av industry.

Dutch Academy For Film - for a good story about Dutch cinema

The Dutch film world has a new club. Dutch filmmakers can join the Dutch Academy For Film (DAFF). With the aim, in a nutshell, of raising the profile of Dutch film. The DAFF was founded on 24 June this year following the example of similar academies in, for example, England, Sweden, Denmark and Germany. A press conference at the Netherlands Film Festival today was the occasion to give it more publicity.

Were there then ...

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Borgman is Dutch entry for the Oscars

It cannot have been a difficult choice. Alex van Warmerdam's feature film Borgman had already made it through to the Cannes competition earlier this year. Now this dark, wry-comic thriller has been chosen as the Dutch entry for the 86th Academy Awards (the Oscars) in the 'Best Foreign Language Film' category.

In Borgman, Jan Bijvoet plays an enigmatic stranger who suddenly arrives in a villa district and sets in motion a series of disturbing events.

Borgman was...

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Mondrian, Verhoeven and human rights in Netherlands-Russia year

With all the critical coverage of Russia that Putin and his supporters are provoking, we would almost forget that we are in the middle of the Netherlands-Russia year sitting. A screening of Paul Verhoeven's war film will take place tonight at the Pioner Gorky Park in Moscow Black Book, as a kick-off to

Nude is main theme at 33rd edition Netherlands Film Festival, Hoe Duur was de Suiker opening film

Paul Verhoeven, Dick Maas, Katja Schuurman, Monique van de Ven and Kim van Kooten are all special guests at the upcoming edition of the Dutch Film Festival. Nothing special, you might think, but if you see them on the festival posters you probably won't recognise them. After all, they are namesakes of well-known film personalities who this year

Curtain falls on film theatre and stage Provadja in Alkmaar

For more than a decade, Alkmaar film theatre and stage Provadja - one of the oldest Dutch film houses - has been struggling with housing that is far too cramped. Plans have been made for more than a decade and last night the city council voted on relocation. And thus chose an option that Provadja's board, staff and volunteers had already categorically rejected. Namely, accommodation in a new multiplex to be built by JT Cinemas to be located in the ailing Overstad shopping area,...

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Cannes opens with The Great Gatsby, but the novelty is already off

Would Gilles Jacob, the director of the Cannes Film Festival, see it as a godsend or a knee-jerk reaction to American studios? That Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby is Wednesday's opening film certainly means spectacle and a lot of attention. But it is not a world premiere, and that is not what we are used to from the world's premier film festival. The Great Gatsby, starring Leonardo DiCaprio in the title role, already premiered in the United States, Canada and a few other countries on 10 May. H...

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Finally another Dutch film in competition at Cannes: Borgman by Alex van Warmerdam

A major frustration of the Dutch film world has come to an end. After 38 years, we again have a film in the main competition at Cannes. Alex van Warmerdam's new film Borgman is competing for the Golden Palm, it was announced this morning. The last Dutch film to win this honour was Jos Stelling's Mariken van Nieumeghen in 1975.

"We are incredibly happy. I see the Cannes Film Festival as the Olympics of cinema. The highest stage on which you can...

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Film summit on boosting film production in the Netherlands takes steps in the right direction

Yesterday, the long-awaited Film Summit was held. At this private meeting, ministers Bussemaker (OCW) and Kamp (Economic Affairs) met a large number of representatives of the film sector. The discussion focused on options to get the Dutch film industry out of an impending downward spiral.

Because Dutch film may be doing well in the cinema, but tough times have arrived for film production itself. And not only because due to government cutbacks the...

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Legendary film critic Roger Ebert died

It will take some getting used to he clicking 'external review' on the Internet Movie Database no longer to come across Roger Ebert's name. This legendary critic who wrote for the Chicago Sun-Times for 46 years died on Thursday at the age of 70. Two days ago, after an 11-year battle with cancer, he said goodbye on his website with the words 'I'll see you at the movies'.

Ebert was one of the few film critics who enjoyed worldwide fame and appreciation. Wars...

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16th Holland Animation Film Festival opens with Monty Python and abstract animation in 3D

That almost all major US family films and many action films are in 3D is by now self-evident. But contrary to predictions a few years ago, similar breakthroughs in the arthouse sector are still scarce. Still, it remains an intriguing promise. The programme section featuring 11 artistic animation experiments in 3D on show at the 16th Holland Animation Film Festival in Utrecht (20 to 24 March) certainly makes one curious. Composer Marc Bertrand of the ...

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2012 cinema year: attendance stable, Skyfall and Intouchables top the list

Perhaps the biggest surprise of the 2012 cinema year was that two completely different films were the biggest crowd-pleasers. In first place the new James Bond Skyfall, of course, with almost 2 million visits. But that the number two (1.2 million) would be a French comedy about a disabled rich man and his black friend from the streets no one initially expected. Intouchables, released by the small arthouse distributor Filmfreak is the surprise hit of the last...

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Dutch opening Film Festival Rotterdam 2013, which this year also embraces television

Fifteen years after Peter Delpeut's Felice, Felice, the International Film Festival Rotterdam gets another Dutch opening. The 42nd edition of this leading event will kick off on 23 January with the world premiere of The Resurrection of a Bastard by Guido van Driel, festival director Rutger Wolfson announced this afternoon.

 

The resurrection of an asshole

Van Driel based this doo...

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Boudewijn Koole receives European film award for Kauwboy

Nice, of course, that Michael Haneke's Amour was not only awarded best film at last night's European Film Awards ceremony in Malta, but also received the director's prize and prizes for best actor and actress. But a bit boring is starting to become this paean to Haneke's latest. Enough of this, then.

Unadulteratedly proud, however, we Dutch remain of the continued success of Kauwboy, now awarded the Prix FIPRESCI at the European Film Awards for E...

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Wry-poetic Alzheimer's doc First Cousin Once Removed best of IDFA

Two opposites had emerged. Would the VPRO IDFA Award for best feature-length documentary go to a personally coloured auteur's film, or to a thoughtful account of a major issue? To Alan Berliner's remarkable portrait of Alzheimer's-affected poet Edwin Honig, or to Dror Moreh's fascinating insight into the Israeli secret service?

Subtle and playful Ernest et Célestine big winner of Cinekid

It is rare for the same film to receive both jury and (children's) audience awards at the Cinekid festival. But about the subtle and sparkling French animated film Ernest et Célestine everyone agreed this time. This story based on picture books by Belgian illustrator Gabrielle Vincent, who died in 2000, won a double award, making it this year's big winner. Ernest and Célestine are a bear and a mouse who have to find that their friendship is poorly understood in the bear and mouse world.

Cinekid honours French animation filmmaker Michel Ocelot with Lifetime Achievement Award

The feature-length French animated film is on the rise. To emphasise this, Michel Ocelot, one of the pacesetters, has been invited as guest of honour by the Cinekid children's film festival. Tonight, he was also presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award, which he accepted with a modest protest. As an animation filmmaker, Michel Ocelot (1943) still considers himself an adolescent with much to discover.

With his African fairy tale-based Kirikou et la sorcière (1998), Ocelot gained world fame and in...

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NFF 2012 - Jos Stellings The Girl and Death enchants Golden Calf jury

The big question was how many of those seven Golden Calf nominations Plan C would manage to cash in. To everyone's surprise, this little crime comedy that attracted less than 7,000 visitors in cinemas had won even more nominations than The Heineken Kidnapping. That says something about the surprise effect of Plan C, made with great enthusiasm and without a Film Fund contribution. And perhaps also something about the rather limited competition from quality films this year for ...

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NFF 2012 - All student awards go to the Film Academy

The Film Academy can be satisfied. The two juries that handed out the three student awards at the Netherlands Film Festival on Monday night had also looked at graduation work from other Dutch academies with a film section. But in the end, all the lucky ones were students of the Netherlands Film and Television Academy, as the Amsterdam programme is called in full. Katja Römer Schuurman in The Club of Ugly Children (photo...... 

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