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Recently, Kees Vlaardingerbroek, programmer of the NTRZaterdagMatinee published a plea against what he calls 'identity politics' in music. 'Bach was not a woman and not Western. So what?" reads the headline. In the subtitle, we read: 'If a composer is not a woman or Western, then it no longer fits into the classical canon.' Quite boldly put, because in any concert brochure you will find...
'Don't use drugs, listen to my music!' This is what Sander Germanus (Amsterdam, 1972) writes confidently on his website. Words you don't immediately expect from a composer of modern-classical music. After all, in this context, many think of incomprehensible 'plink-plonk' rather than mind-blowing sounds. A refreshing sound from someone who designed his own method of composition, so-called 'horizontal harmony'. Ehm... What should we...
'That I have perpetrators in my family gives me the responsibility to keep remembering. Many of my contemporaries say we should never forget and that it should never happen again, but do nothing else. Being a writer gives me the opportunity to do something. To write about it, make readers feel...
Dutch cameramen also join the chorus of concern about Dutch cinema. The New Deal manifesto carries suggestions for improvement.
Monday 15 April 2019, this date is forever etched in our memory. I couldn't keep dry at the images of the all-consuming fire at Notre-Dame de Paris. Like millions of others, I sat glued to my screen for hours with bated breath: this cannot be true! When the structure, the rose windows and even the organ turned out to be saved, I jumped...
After the Dutch thriller Prooi, The Conductor has also been acquired for release in Chinese cinema.
With his new book The Discovery of Elsschot, Elsschot biographer Vic van de Reijt wants to get the whole of the Netherlands reading Elsschot's books. Seven reasons why these classics are timeless fun. 1. You can finish every book by Elsschot in one day 'In 1970 I bought his Collected Works for nine guilders, I remember it well. At the time...
A petition was recently started to restore Olivier Keegel's press accreditation by The National Opera. He was denied press passes because he frequently expressed negative views on Pierre Audi's programme choices on the blog Operagazet and in Het Parool. Moreover, he denounced his penchant for "director's theatre", in which, according to him, the content falls prey to a far-fetched...
'Heinz' and 'Buñuel in the Labyrinth of the Turtles', both out on 18 April, signal an important development in the field of feature-length Dutch animation. A breakthrough is in the air. On stubbornness and co-productions, Anne Frank and Miss Moxy. And what else is on the horizon.
Agnès Varda, once one of the few female filmmakers of the Nouvelle Vague, always upheld that free creative spirit. On 29 March, she died in Paris. Her rich oeuvre is an ode to life.
Calm and peace are but a thin layer covering the chaos of war and other violence in the world. In an extensive and richly varied themed programme, Eye shows how filmmakers have captured that in stories.
His heart skipped a beat in 2005 when he saw an email arrive from his former Icelandic girlfriend. The mail revealed a truth that Tom Stranger had tried to push away for years: he had raped his girlfriend Thordis Elva. Their equally shocking and courageous story Elva and Stranger shared in a TEDx lecture and a joint book, 7200 seconds -...
Why does someone keep his mother's dead body in the house? In Moeders lichaam, Joris van Casteren sketches a fascinating and loving portrait of a man, his mother and a Limburg village. 'Did you hear that story about the man with his dead mother?' his former journalism teacher asked a few years ago. No, Joris van Casteren hadn't. Because he...
Her debut novel became an instant bestseller in Spain. The Last Gift of Paulina Hoffmann by Carmen Romero Dorr is a novel based partly on her own family history about Paulina, who emigrates from Germany to Spain as a young girl because of World War II. 'About her past, her experiences during the war, my grandmother never wanted to talk.' A beautiful family epic, that is The Last...
A survey shows that Dutch filmmakers are very concerned about the production conditions and quality of Dutch feature films. The Filmmakers Initiative wants to spark discussion and propose solutions. A symposium as a kick-off.
The images in his mind are always very strong, even if he does not know beforehand what they mean. Photographer Erwin Olaf works intuitively and only sees afterwards what his photo series are about. Like Palm Springs, his new work on show since this weekend at the double exhibition at the Gemeentemuseum and Fotomuseum in The Hague. 'Fantasy is for...
'Would you like to see my smurfs?' From anyone else's mouth such a question would sound strange, but with Nicolien Mizee you are not surprised. After all, the Haarlem-based writer's books are often a tad strange and absurd, and above all witty. The interview tape is already off, the tea is finished, and Mizee pulls out a kind of maquette...
How did the Hague prostitute Blonde Dolly make her millions? And why was her killer never caught, when it was abundantly clear who must have strangled her? That smells like a conspiracy, and conspiracies are like grist to writer Tomas Ross' mill. In Blonde Dolly, he tackles one of the oldest and most mysterious cold cases in the Netherlands. Until it...
As good and fluent as writing poems and songs was for him, everyday life fell on him with difficulty. Writer Willem Wilmink grew into a folk hero of Twente, but remained a child at heart, according to the biography by literary critic Elsbeth Etty. 'Someone who, according to his best friend Herman Finkers, couldn't even hold a pair of scissors.'
Rabbit Hole is the name of the programme with which the International Film Festival Rotterdam dives into the world of internet memes. With a Meme Café, vlogging Chinese and the dazzling feminist pamphlet Make Me Up.
Oratorios are notoriously undramatic because they only tell a story for one second and do not zoom in on human emotions. Juditha Triumphans is no exception and the narrative itself has little to it. To rid her town of its assailants, Judith gets their general drunk and then cuts off his head. This could make for a compelling story, were it...
Everyone has seen them before, those pineapple plants from Ikea. Many people keep them in the room for a while, until they die and end up in the dustbin. But for journalist Lex Boon (35), the moment he received such a plant as a gift from his (ex-)girlfriend was a turning point in his life. He became hooked on the crowned fruit and flew...
'Feel IFFR' is the motto of this year's International Film Festival Rotterdam. The emotion behind the image and with the viewer as a guide for our interpretation. The opening film Dirty God is a nice test case. Director Sacha Polak explains why she wanted to make a film about a scarred woman.
On Wednesday 16 January, Reinbert de Leeuw will present his cycle Im wunderschönen Monat Mai at Paradiso. A unique opportunity to see him at work once more in his globally believed masterpiece. In 2003, he surprised friend and foe alike with this composition inspired by songs by Schumann and Schubert. Was that not swearing in church? Arnold Schoenberg had the Romanticism...
The cinema industry presents its 2018 annual figures. Visits stable at 35.7 million, but Dutch film's market share dropped again, now to 11%. Half of the peak year of 2011.
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