Things we do for members and partners.
With one day to go, it's time to look at what stood out about the International Documentary Festival Amsterdam. The picture of the entire festival is diffuse, as befits a fest whose programme booklet is almost three hundred pages thick. There was, as always, a sea of films about abuses and current political issues, but there were...
De man heeft de blik naar boven gericht. Hij kijkt verbaasd. Waarom hangt hij nu hier? Hier, in Amsterdam? Hij komt toch uit Spanje? Vervolgens hing hij jarenlang in St. Petersburg. Deze zaal, net zo diep rood en imponerend groot als de ‘’Spanish Hall’’ in de Hermitage, lijkt trouwens verdraaid veel op de zaal waar hij zo lang hing. Overigens…
De voorstelling ‘Bed & Breakfast’ van Debby Petter in Theater Achterom in Hilversum was net afgelopen. Directeur Gerlofke Hekelaar sprak het publiek toe, want het was de allerlaatste voorstelling geweest. Na 45 jaar houdt Stichting Theater Achterom op te bestaan. Weer een theater dat ten onder gaat door de bezuinigingen in de culturele sector. Maar is geldgebrek wel de enige…
A Strange Love Affair With Ego by Ester Gould was awarded best Dutch documentary at IDFA. An intimate and groundbreaking reflection on our need to be seen.
American filmmaker Les Blank stole my heart a long time ago with the short docu he made about Werner Herzog: Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe. And that is exactly what happened in that film. Herzog lost a bet to Errol Morris: he never thought the latter would finish his Gates of Heaven. And so...
Today's IDFA viewing tip is directly opposite yesterday's. Yesterday was uplifting and heartwarming. Cartel Land, on the other hand, is hard, raw, unpleasant and brutal. It could hardly be otherwise, as Matthew Heineman's film is about the war on drugs in Mexico and Arizona, which is just north of it. At the risk of...
Today, the appeal against the conviction of Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov to 20 years in prison is due to be heard. European Film Academy appeals for help from director Nikita Makhalkov.
Next Friday is the day. Then, speakers in the fields of technology, economy and design will climb the stage in the Stadsschouwburg Amsterdam to talk about their 'ideas worth spreading'. This year's theme is 'the perfect trifecta', because if there is anything magical according to founder Jim Stolze, it is the interaction between audience, speakers and performers. Notable...
Today's IDFA viewing tip is for a special film about a special man, Sun Mu. That's not his real name, it means 'without borders'. And that is very appropriate for this artist. For years, he was a successful propaganda artist for the regime in North Korea. Until he ventured the great crossing. He swam (literally!) to freedom and has lived since the...
Mrs Cornelys' Entertainments. Under that remarkable title, baroque company New Dutch Academy presented a concert in a theatrical setting. The Hague's Korzo Theatre turned into a society evening. Visiting a much-discussed lady from 18th-century London. It was a feast for the eyes and ears. New Dutch Academy has a changing line-up in addition to some permanent members. The Academy keeps itself - the name...
I didn't have to think long about today's tip. Chantal Akerman's latest film runs this afternoon at 13:15. No Home Movie is about her mother, who survived Auschwitz, and her final days. And about the difficult relationship Akerman had with her mother. She tells in an interview that they were in Mexico together once
What titles come to mind when you hear the name Arvo Pärt? Sonatina opus 1; Symphony no. 1; Perpetuum mobile, or Fratres; Für Alina; Spiegel im Spiegel? My guess is the second set, because it was with pieces like these that Pärt conquered the world in the late 20th century. Audiences flocked in droves to immerse themselves in his sonorous sound world, but...
For 500 years, Hieronymus Bosch has captured the imagination. His paintings remain enormously expressive, even though we may now have lost sight of the ecclesiastical context. In the run-up to the major retrospective that the North Brabant Museum is organising next year, a selection of Dutch art historians and curators will set out to examine Bosch's paintings. What...
The first IDFA tip of the day is immediately a double bill and both films are decades old. They are in the top 10 of Errol Morris, this year's chief guest. Las Hurdes - Tierra sin Pan by Luis Bunuel is a half-hour film that made documentary history. Bunuel was also known then for Un...
'Exciting and accessible, with great tragic content and an unexpected and poignant ending'. With those words, writer Jan Vantoortelboom was awarded the Zeeland Book Prize last week. A Quattro Mani visited him in Zeeuws-Vlaanderen and talked to him about his novel De man die haast had. 'I have grown as a writer.' Writing house 'The Tortelnest' adorns the hand-painted...
Het jaarlijkse Najaarsoverleg over brandende kwesties in de filmsector was geheel gewijd aan de benarde positie van de kleine artistieke film. Worden er te veel titels uitgebracht?
Als bij een voorpremière de parkeerplaats van het Zuiderstrandtheater vol staat weet je dat er binnen iets spannends gebeurt. En dat klopt: Isabelle Beernaert en haar ensemble presenteren de nieuwe productie Under My Skin. Dans als een Instagram-account: populair, fotogeniek en kortstondig. Vrouw Eigenlijk is het dans als een Pinterest-account. Want dat schijnt vooral voor vrouwen te zijn. En er is veel…
Maaike Engels (video artist and filmmaker) and Teun Voeten (war photographer and cultural anthropologist) made Welcome to the Jungle. A documentary about the utter chaos in the makeshift migrant camp near the canal tunnel in Calais, where some 6,000 people are now waiting in harsh misery for their chance to travel clandestinely to England. Welcome to the Jungle is a painful and bij...
Arab Camera film festival in Rotterdam opens on a light-hearted note from an unknown film country. In From A to B, three rich kids from the Emirates learn to stand on their own two feet.
I hesitated for a while whether to report on the theatre workshop offered to Syrian refugees by Koon Theatre on Monday 9 November, as part of Dancing on the Edge. During the workshop, the refugees prepared a short presentation to be shown in Stadsschouwburg Utrecht on Friday 13 November, prior to the theatre performance Above Zero. The reason...
No war scares or torturous refugee issues tonight 5 November, but getting unexpectedly intimate on stage with a strange woman. That could happen to you at Dancing on the Edge. The congenial, biennial festival featuring artists from the Middle East and North Africa can be seen in several cities until 14 November. Once started by race entrepreneur and dancer Gary Feingold, the...
Failing directors stay put, the Supervisory Board disqualifies itself. No other conclusion is possible after reading the counter-expertise commissioned by the province of Overijssel and carried out by Berenschot. The provincial millions intended to make the orchestra subsidy-independent have not only evaporated, but show a negative balance in every aspect. Every estimate was too optimistic,...
Last spring, while looking at Catinka Kersten's newly installed sculpture on the patio of museum Beelden aan Zee, Iris Le Rütte's sculpture Daphne caught my eye. A woman who instead of a head and arms stretched branches to the sky. It is a scene from Ovid's Metamorphoses: the nymph Daphne, on the...
In de Amsterdamse Brakke Grond opende gisteren het Dancing on the Edge festival (DOTE) met een avond die gelijk toonde wat de spanbreedte is. De eerste voorstelling, Blank, ging een directe relatie aan met het publiek. In de tweede, en officiële openingsvoorstelling, Plastic, ging het meer over de dynamiek tussen de performers onderling en met de soundscape. Met haar openingsspeech…
In the wings of Nederlands Dans Theater, the new generation of dance makers is ready. Medhi Walerski and Johan Inger are both former dancers of the company and have previously created pieces there. In NDT2's Shearing the Wolves programme, they each surprise with a world premiere full of intense, pure dance. In comparison, an older work by house choreographers Sol Léon and...
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