All about politics, policy, society and how those things relate to culture and art.
Today we posted this message, and quickly realised that the news had been released before. Only a few minutes later it dawned on us that the original post, of which this is a free translation, had already appeared on The Independent's site on 22 October 1995. Thanks to a database update and a perceptive site visitor, who...
The Rutte government is defending the VAT increase on admission tickets to theatres and concerts, claiming that it will straighten out an exception for the arts. However, this does not appear to be true, according to a response from the Order of Tax Advisers to the proposal. "The Bar Association additionally points out that the explanatory memorandum notes that for the performing arts on...
Among lovers of the music of contemporaries Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) and George Frederic Handel (1685-1759), the bickering is well comparable to that between supporters of Beatles and Rolling Stones. Bach is classical, Handel populist, Bach wrote lofty music, Handel flat-out , Bach was (barring his St Matthew Passion) succinct in his musical statements, Handel rambled on endlessly. And so...
Beppe Costa. Who doesn't know him. And who wouldn't go to a show he plays in without thinking for a minute? After all, the little Italian musical jack-of-all-trades is capable of winning hearts with his music. And with his presence. Well. Director Alize Zandwijk must have thought: we're going to change that image completely this autumn,...
Johan Nijenhuis' Foeksia de miniheks has become the big audience favourite of Cinekid, the festival for film, television and new media for young people. Friday evening, it was announced at the awards ceremony that Foeksia had won both the general audience award (Z@pp Cinekid Lion) and the audience award for best Dutch children's film. Foeksia the Mini-Witch, based on the book of the same name by Paul van Z...
GDMW festival comes from the tube of the only literary magazine still doing a bit in the Netherlands: Passionate Magazine. A bit contrary, youthful but not juvenile and with an open eye to the many cultures in the city where it was founded: Rotterdam. The festival is a happy combo of literary content, happy poets, embarrassing displays and beer,...
Leonard Retel Helmrich's Dutch documentary Stand of the Stars will open the 23rd edition of the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) on 17 November, it was announced yesterday. The film is also in the competition for best feature-length documentary. State of the Stars is the third part of a triptych in which Retel Helmrich follows the fortunes of...
The arts are also being hit by cuts in the UK. The budget debate in the UK House of Commons has revealed that those cuts could amount to more than 30%. The lion's share of the cuts will hit Arts Council England. This 'Superfund', which distributes the lion's share of UK arts funding, has to cut 29.9%. Of its budget of almost 450 million...
Incandescent bulbs are also out of the question in theatres. Plays, musicals and concerts will soon all have to switch to "sustainable" lighting. And, just as this affects the atmosphere in the living room, it also affects the atmosphere on stage: sustainable light has completely different colour values than old-fashioned light. Lighting designers have been complaining about this for some time. But how...
Sir Simon Rattle is quite clear about it: "The entire musical world must be as horrified and puzzled as I am to see such a massive destruction of orchestral and choral institutions in Holland." (The entire musical world must be as horrified and puzzled as I am, at the sight of such massive destruction of orchestral and choral institutions in Holland)....
It was a pleasantly out-of-control flashmob: according to the police, there were around 3,000 people on The Hague's Malieveld at around noon. Young people, mostly: students from The Hague Art Academy and the Consevatorium. But that is not enough to make the Malieveld feel crowded. From all corners of the country, young art students were...
The Golden Calf for the best Dutch feature film was awarded on the closing night of the Netherlands Film Festival to Joy, a modest arthouse film that, according to René Mioch, was seen by no more than 2,000 people. Joy was also the front-runner for the nominations, so in that respect the jury's decision was in line with expectations, although it had...
Joy, directed by Mijke de Jong to a screenplay by Helena van der Meulen, has become the leader in the battle for the Golden Calfs at the Netherlands Film Festival. With seven nominations, suddenly, deservedly, all attention is focused on a small but intensely filmed and acted drama that until now had remained somewhat in the shadows. This...
One of the most fascinating Dutch films to hit cinemas last year was Ditteke Mensink's Farewell. A romance in an airship flying around the world, and then constructed entirely from real archive footage. This miraculous and wonderful tour de force now has a chance of winning a Golden Calf for best feature-length documentary. This and other nominations for Golden Calfs were...
Where were the producers? On Tomorrow's Maker's Day, the Netherlands Film Festival screened 48 graduation films from the Film Academy and other art schools. So the hall should have been full of film producers to scout all that new talent, but no, exactly today the Film Fund had organised a meeting with those Dutch producers. Not so convenient. What did those...
Today (Friday 24 September 2010) at Amsterdam's De Balie debate centre, the kick-off of the art world's actions against the 21% cuts to the OC&W budget planned by the new CDA and VVD cabinet, tolerated by PVV. For those who have not yet found reports about it in the mainstream media: the social netwersite 'twitter'...
Things happen in places like this that cannot bear the light of day. We are deep in Rotterdam's container port, among the neon-lit transhipment yards and dark warehouses. In one of those raw warehouses are two truck trailers. One is set up as an illegal sewing workshop, the other is filled with earth and rubber tyres. They form the backdrop for Hungarian theatre-maker Kornél Mundruczó's performance 'Hard to be a god'.
The show tells the fairly inimitable story of Karoly, who wants to make symbolic torture porn to blackmail his father with it. That father once raped his sister and is now an MEP. Three women are lured to this sewing studio under false pretences to participate in those videos. Things do not end well for them, partly because the foreign film director has rather sadistic tendencies, damaging the ladies to the point of rendering them useless.
It is now official: Daan Bakker is the new film talent to keep an eye on. Last night, it was announced at the opening of the Netherlands Film Festival that he is the winner of the Film Prize of the City of Utrecht for best debut. He received this award for his short film Bukowski, an engaging and brilliantly executed fantasy about...
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.
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...
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...
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.
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....
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...
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.
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