IDFA DocLab has returned home to the Brakke Grond, and how! More than thirty-five works explore the boundaries of documentary in content and form. DocLab is the digital playground where anything is technically and conceptually possible now. So I watched a work with scent, danced in the 80s and got so relaxed I almost...
The 35th edition of the IDFA documentary festival will kick off on 9 November. About the film selection, he remarked that it is "not only a judgement, but also a statement". In this interview, he talks about the choice of filmmaker-activist Laura Poitras as guest of honour, and much more.
IDFA 2021 will kick off on 17 November. Again largely on location. A pleasant surprise this year is the rich crop of Dutch documentaries.
If you get the urge to run your finger through the candle flame for a moment, then a VR installation is already almost successful. Not just because of the technical feat, but also because it convinces as a place to bivouac for half an hour. I am standing at the bar of a seventeenth-century Amsterdam pub. There are murmurs, music, a bartender who is...
I have seen a lot of genre mash-ups in my lifetime. But I think a danced documentary about a musician was a first for me. The focus of choreographer Jan Martens in his new dance solo Elisabeth Gets Her Way is the famous harpsichordist Elisabeth Chojnacka. The Polish left for Paris at the age of 23. There she set her sights on...
Better to die standing than to live kneeling. The statement is fresh in memory after the murder in the Lange Leidse Dwarsstraat, as a mantra in praise of Peter R de Vries, his fearlessness, non-conformism, straightforwardness and honesty. This same statement jumps out even from the first paragraphs of the introduction to the biography of poet Jef Last, written by Rudi Wester.1....
Je Maintiendrai. Holland's motto of arms ('Ik zal handhaven') adorns the beautiful hall of Utrecht's old Post Office, now Library. The motto also watched over the premiere of the performance 'Solomon's Judgement' with which Ilay den Boer now returns to the public. After all, he was not here for a while. He worked for just under a year at the IND, the Immigration and Naturalisation Service,...
From Thursday 2 to Sunday 12 September 2021, the Netherlands Theatre Festival will show the best productions of the past theatre season. The Netherlands Theatre Jury, headed by jury president Hadassah de Boer, selected the eight best theatre productions of the moment. Today, the jury announced its selection. The full selection can be seen during the upcoming edition of the festival
Plein Theatre presents from 13 July to 30 July the extraordinary four-channel video installation Street Vendors: Medellín, Tirana, Johannesburg, Yogyakarta by artist Su Tomesen. The video installation shows the daily life of street vendors on four different continents. Street Vendors: Medellín, Tirana, Johannesburg, Yogyakarta Street Vendors: Medellín, Tirana, Johannesburg, Yogyakarta is about how private companies occupy urban public space every day and...
Saturday 26 June at the Holland Festival, a special evening around two music films by Frank Scheffer: the documentary Inner Landscape and the opera film Si Fan. Supplemented by a short live performance by Chinese musician Wu Wei. This will present a musical journey from the seventh-century Tang Dynasty to contemporary electronic music. An evening with unexpected perspectives.
Swart Gat/ Golden Age (Dunguu olo - katibo-ten) is a theatrical installation about Amsterdam's slavery past and Maroon culture from Suriname. The concept is by Tolin Erwin Alexander, Berith Danse and designer Bartel Meyburg. The theatrical installation, which has lost none of its urgency, has been further finished and will start again in summer 2021! From 17 June (19 June...
With its closing chapter, the International Film Festival Rotterdam celebrates its 50th anniversary from 2 to 6 June. And the celebration of cinema. At least online. But whether audiences can experience the real festival feeling again in the theatres is far from certain. Opening film is The World to Come.
We asked him a few questions about his experiences and influences. What is your experience with animation so far? 'As a child, I liked drawing comics. I made the comic Kaas-Trek with a friend, a kind of persiflage on Star-Trek, and we would sell it to classmates and buy sweets from them. Who framed Roger Rabbit I remember as...
On 1 February, the 50th International Film Festival Rotterdam kicks off online. Here are some advance viewing tips.
Especially in a bizarre year like this, I need hot films: classics, found footage or children's film, all are allowed. As long as it deals with big emotions or offers the perfect escapism. Like every year, there is plenty to enjoy on TV. Not like every year, there is no option to seek refuge elsewhere, but streaming offers the solution. Five tips to get through Christmas.
In IDFA winner Radiograph of a Family, the Iranian revolution invades the marriage of filmmaker Firouzeh Khosrovani's secular father and her religious mother. What makes this family portrait so special?
Today opens IDFA's The DocLab, perhaps my favourite part of the festival. With its own competition, commissions and exhibition, this is the realm of digital experimentation.
Weismann strikes me as too brilliant and intelligent a director to throw himself into an adventure that could break him for good. An alpha male, a big ego, it was well known. And couldn't keep his paws off young women.
A sleek, snow-white art temple in the middle of the Congolese interior. What does that mean? Renzo Martens talks about his new documentary White Cube, and the art project that allows plantation workers to buy back their land. Premiering at IDFA and in Lusanga, Congo.
Golden Calf winner Buladó is now our Oscar entry. That will satisfy advocates of more colour in Dutch cinema. And on Sunday, check out Festus Toll's When You Hear the Divine Call, a more modest but equally telling example of new light in Dutch cinema.
Those who read De opgang begin to understand more about Belgium: the country's gigantic split, the friction between the two parts of the country, and the rise and success of the Vlaams Blok. Hertmans has also come to a better understanding of how deep the cleavages and "the sorrows of Belgium" run.
The 40th edition of the Netherlands Film Festival pushes the boundaries. Corona makes everything go differently. Now in more than 100 theatres across the country, and also online. For groundbreaking work, there is the sixth instalment of the Directors' Forum.
More than 20 years ago, David Grossman's phone rang. A woman by the name of Eva Panić Nahir had something to say about an article he had published in an Israeli newspaper. Grossman smiles at the memory. 'What my piece was about I don't remember, except that she thought I had not gone far enough in my criticism of the government. I did find it refreshing to be attacked for once by someone from the left, instead of - as usual - the right wing.'
Things need time and distance to become a story. Good, then, that in his 'State of Theatre,' the traditional opening of the theatre season, Rau did not take the floor himself, but handed it over to people who are now in the midst of the confusing time of austerity, coronasteun and political turmoil. Because the 100 international makers he asked for a book entitled "Why Theatre?" could not come because of the pandemic, six Dutch makers were invited.
On Tuesday 30 June and Wednesday 1 July 2020, Aan tafel can be seen at the Maaspodium, Rotterdam, a performance on the history of slavery as part of Keti Koti. It is the third year in a row that Maas is trying to make this painful part of history palpable through theatre. The performance will be made (coronaproof) and performed by Sue-Ann...
English (UK) 
Nederlands 
Français