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ACTUAL

All about politics, policy, society and how those things relate to culture and art.

Tirza opens 30th edition Dutch Film Festival - actors in the spotlight

By Leo Bankersen

Film acting is in the special spotlight during the 30th edition of the Netherlands Film Festival. So that's convenient that the Festival opens tonight with Tirza, a story that is too gruesome to be true, but which, thanks to the acting of Gijs Scholten van Aschat, Sylvia Hoeks and Johanna ter Steege, among others, you have to believe anyway.

Rudolf van den Berg single-handedly reworked Arnon Grunberg's book, about Jörgen Hofmeester, his failed life and his adored daughter, into a haunting road movie, a journey to the end of the night. Scholten van Aschat, who had long been working towards the role, allows the contained bitterness and anger to slowly turn into despair. Hoeks plays her best role so far here and Ter Steege saw enough in this script to put aside her dislike of Grunberg. And don't forget nine-year-old Keitumetse Matlabo from South Africa, as Hofmeester's conscience and guardian angel. The result is a film that wrings and chafes, but also has the allure of a great and bitter tragedy. Tirza is now the Dutch entry for the Oscars.

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Cultural world in action on September 24

Art-goers take note: the joint unions and professional organisations in the cultural sector are calling Friday 24 September a national day of action. So on that day, visitors may be confronted by talking musicians and dancers. On the website 'Stop the cultural barrenness', numerous artists' organisations (from FNV Kiem to the Art Directors Club) are calling on Hague's opnderhandelers to abandon... 

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Over three million for The best of both worlds

The Fund for Cultural Participation has awarded grants to eight multi-year projects by professional arts organisations as part of the Best of Both Worlds programme. The total amount involved is €3,397,333. With the programme The best of two worlds, the Fund for Cultural Participation wants to give an impulse to the cooperation between professionals and amateurs in the field of culture. There are three... 

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'Stardust' by Pete Rogie is great stream of little stories about encounters, confrontations, disappointments and lonely moments #dekeuze

Anyone walking into the venue where choreographer/visual artist Piet Rogie's performance 'Stardust' is due to take place is immediately astonished. In the vacant exhibition hall of the Netherlands Architecture Institute in Rotterdam, ropes are stretched, it is teeming with seemingly carelessly scattered props and four cement mixers stand along the side like implacable sentinels. The whole space radiates that things are getting exciting. And the viewer is not disappointed with that.

Read More "'Stardust' by Pete Rogie is great stream of little stories about encounters, confrontations, disappointments and lonely moments #dekeuze

More audience, fewer seats: Amsterdam Fringe a lot cozier this year, and better than last year #tf2010 #amsfringe

With over 12,000 visitors and an average occupancy rate of 70%, the organisers of the Amsterdam Fringe Festival say they have reason for pride. In a press release, they report that 'they managed to grow the number of visitors without losing the intimacy and experimental character of the Amsterdam Fringe Festival. ' How exactly we should see that.... 

Read More "More audience, fewer seats: Amsterdam Fringe a lot cozier this year, and better than last year #tf2010 #amsfringe

Performance 'Metro' gives you a slap in the face #amsfringe #tf2010

A new day, so new chances to find the Fringe's greatest gem. Today, I am taken from Theatre Bellevue into a nearby alley. Suddenly I see her lying there. A junk, like there are more walking around in Amsterdam. Preferably, I quickly walk around it. Afraid of smelling them or being accosted. Metro, a piece of... 

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30th Dutch Film Festival celebrates anniversary with Mirror of Holland

When the 30th edition of the Netherlands Film Festival kicks off on 22 September, the first Golden Calf will be awarded to Rolf Orthel. This was announced by festival director Willemien van Aalst at a press conference today.

Producer and director Orthel receives this award for his special merit for Dutch film culture. In 1975, he made a name for himself with the impressive documentary A semblance of doubt, about the prisoners and guards of Auschwitz and Westerbork. As a producer, he often committed to difficult projects by young makers. The documentary he produced Bastøy, about a Norwegian prison island, will premiere this festival.

Read More "30th Dutch Film Festival celebrates anniversary with Mirror of Holland

Prize of (Theatre) Criticism 2010 to musical workshop M-Lab

Just when it was announced that musical production house M-Lab is in financial distress, a helping hand comes from Dutch theatre critics. Indeed, the annual Prize of Criticism goes to the laboratory that produces musicals that almost always matter. We quote the jury report:A laboratory is not only for somewhat unworldly scientists who are fiddling on the square millimetre... 

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Russian soul dissected: religion and vodka create moral dilemmas

photo Sl-Ziga

By Willem Jan Keizer

Rotterdam - Thanks to conductor Valeri Gergyev, we get more insight into the huge reservoir of Russian composers. Rodion Shchedrin for example. Last year a piano concerto of his was performed, Sunday night in de Doelen it was his opera for the concert stage 'The Enchanted Wanderer', after the book 'The Enchanted Wanderer' by Nikolai Leskov. The opera is dedicated to conductor Lorin Maazel, who also conducted the premiere in New York in 2002.

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RPhO's gift to the resurrected city falls short at opening Gergiev festival

tim hugh
Tim Hugh

By Willem Jan Keizer

Rotterdam - The fifteenth edition of the Gergjev Festival officially kicked off Friday evening in the presence of Her Majesty the Queen in concert hall de Doelen with a concert by the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Valeri Gergjev. Although the festival takes place at some 20 locations in the city - not only in de Doelen but also in the Laurenskerk, the conservatory, museum Boijmans van Beuningen and numerous other unexpected locations - the festival is virtually invisible in the city.

Read More "RPhO's gift to the resurrected city falls short at opening Gergiev festival

John Moran experiments with thousands of bits of sound you hear every day

Amsterdam's Stadsschouwburg is velvet red. Theatre Bellevue, the beating heart of the Amsterdam Fringe Festival, whorish pink. The Amsterdam Fringe, that means performances in more than 25 places. In theatres, but also on location. From 2 to 12 September 2010 Henk de Jong for The Dodo and performing arts trade journal TM in search of the pearl of the Fringe. Here he keeps a diary, and a longer article by him will appear in the next issue of TM.

Read More "John Moran experiments with thousands of bits of sound you hear every day

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,... 

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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... 

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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.

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

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... 

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The Dodo spreads its wings in dire times for subsidised art

Then you just have to have Twan Huys. The presenter of Nova who managed to kill all Job Cohen's election ambitions in a few schoolmaster questions. He will be able to pull the same trick on Sunday 29 August with a few left-wing politicians and arts bobos in the traditional Uitmarkt debate in Paradiso.

Read More "The Dodo spreads its wings in dire times for subsidised art

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

'In this museum, we so often extol the landscape, that for once we wanted to show the destruction, upheaval and impending change of the landscape.' According to Han Steenbruggen, director of Museum Belvedere in Heerenveen-Oranjewoud, it was time for an exhibition that shows what war, natural disasters and climate change do to the landscape: 'With this exhibition, we reflect and respond to... 

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

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... 

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'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.

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

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... 

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

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?

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