On 11 September 1985, the biggest train disaster in Portuguese history took place. Near Alcafache, an international express train collided with a local barge. Nothing was ever recovered from dozens of passengers. They were totally charred in the scorching inferno. Portuguese writer João Ricardo Pedro, in his stunning novel Underway, reconstructs how one of those missing people ended up in that place where...
Of the 100 days in which Kassel is transforming itself into 'the world museum of contemporary art' this year, as it does every five years, 20 days have already ticked away. This has certainly not happened silently. The formula that artistic director and chief curator Adam Szymczyk and his staff have unleashed on Documenta has brought a large number of fans to their feet. For me.
During the first two weeks of this Holland Festival, almost all art was about something. The festival theme of 'democracy', conceived for the occasion, appears to have penetrated just about every hairline. Sometimes painful and highly topical, as in the National Theatre's phenomenal 'The Nation', sometimes downright embarrassing, as in Romeo's heavily overrated 'Democracy in America'...
Endless chatting at the kitchen table. While cooking. That's all they do, the brother, the sister, the ex, the two daughters-in-law and the mother of the Gabriel family. About recipes, about the old piano. About Thomas, the brother who died of parkinson's, about his wife, who due to informal care had no time to renew her doctor's degree. All very casually, without...
Is your relationship just on the rocks or is it in dire straits? Congratulations! According to author and spiritual teacher Jan Geurtz, a major love crisis is the chance to be freed from all the patterns that torment you. He describes why this is so in his new book About Love and Letting Go. Even if you have been in it for years...
The nearly five-hour documentary 'Combat au bout de la nuit' reveals how ordinary Greek people experience the crisis. A true immersion experience.
A conversation with Erik Lieshout on 'To Stay Alive', his film adaptation (with Iggy Pop!) of Michel Houellebecq's essay 'Rester vivant'. Don't throw in the towel, insists these life-giving artists. Reinvent yourself.
The positive effects of culture are demonstrated again and again. It is high time the sector used these facts in improving its image. Our western and southern neighbours have boosted the image of culture with a number of successful initiatives. The sports sector is another example of image building that the cultural sector can learn from. There...
Despite the crisis in the performing arts, there is still a lot of young talent roaming the Netherlands and beyond. So much that keeping track is impossible. After all, who can visit all the festivals, from Festival Boulevard to Noorderzon, from the Café Theatre Festival to Festival Cement and from the Amsterdam Fringe Festival to the Zeeland Nazomerfestival? And then also exactly those four or five performances from the...
The cost of crisis Small heroes is the title of the new novel by Almudena Grandes, one of Spain's greatest writers. And little heroes it is all about: the novel is actually a collection of interrelated stories about people like all of us, only these people all live in Madrid. Rich and poor, young...
Project Cloud, the latest experiential artwork by Bossche city artist Lucas de Man, may need a disclaimer. Anyone entering the seven-storey work had better not do so in the company of a solid existential crisis. The visitor before me did, and still needed a very good talk with a psychological counsellor afterwards. Who...
Is there any reason to buy the magazine 'Boekman 106′? For me, yes, although I should immediately throw a magazine that claims to be the Dutch forum for art, culture and policy into the dustbin for displayed arrogance. After all, with a circulation of only 1400 copies, and appearing four times a year, how can you give yourself such a...
45th Film Festival Rotterdam, the first under new director Bero Beyer, gets off to a strong start with Beyond Sleep, after W.F. Hermans's Nooit meer slapen.
The Orchestra of the East is cutting its coat of arms, focusing primarily on Overijssel and has applied for collective redundancy. This - and a whole lot more - can be read in the new business plan. It is enough for the province to release a one-off €1.1 million and make 3.5 tonnes of annual subsidy available again from now on. The...
The SER today confirmed what we already predicted in 2012: the income position of workers in the arts has been seriously weakened. Amid all the positive news about rising income and attendance figures, this is a harsh confrontation with the reality behind the numbers. Permanent staff have been replaced by freelancers to a much greater extent than in the rest of the business world. And.
Since the financial crisis and subsequent cuts, the cultural sector has been forced to legitimise itself. Scientific research has to demonstrate the social outcome of art and culture. To assist the cultural sector in this, the Landelijk Kennisinstituut voor Cultuureducatie en Amateurkunst (LKCA) therefore started the so-called 'fact factory', a numerical overview of key data and developments in the...
We had already announced it. This period is all about positive framing by the arts sector. Good news has to be spread, although people don't really know why. After all, there are no shareholders to be kept happy, only concerned art lovers. Enfin. On Wednesday 9 September, NRC journalist Daan van Lent presented the result of an investigation into the...
If all goes well, the 56th Thessaloniki International Film Festival will kick off on 6 November. Less well-known than Rotterdam, Berlin or Locarno, but the most important festival in southern Europe. And they have quirky and broad programming, where you can discover all kinds of new filmmakers. But is it going well? The first festival dated back to 1960 and was...
In the midst of all the Greek calamity, something beautiful has blossomed: a new inspired cinema that makes us blink.
Following the euro crisis, Culture Press focuses on Greece in a series of articles. In the first part, George Vermij looks at how film has influenced our image of the Mediterranean country. Is there not a more striking image of Greece than Antony Quinn as Zorba dancing the Sirtaki and finding resignation despite the harsh setbacks life offers? The...
It could just be a solution to Greece's problems: investing in culture. For Britain, at least, the softest of all sectors has proved a fertile cash cow. The cultural sector added 15 billion in value to the economy there last year, almost 3 billion more than two years ago. In other words: for every pound the government put in...
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