On Monday May 28th the VietNam Film Institute presented a new documentary film about Ivens in VietNam at the occassion of a ceremony in Nijmegen celebrating 50 years of solidarity between Nijmegen and VietNam. Mrs. Ngo Thi Hoa, Ambassador of VietNam in The Hague, Mr. Hubert Bruls, mayor of Nijmegen, and activists from the 1960s and 70s supporting VietNam, attended this meeting. The theme 'Looking back for a better future' was illustrated with specialists presenting innovative technologies from Nijmegen in nowadays projects in Viet ...

The DEFA Foundation in Berlin released a new German DVD with Ivens-films in conjunction with the book Günter Jordan published about these films. DEFA already had launched a DVD with Song of the Rivers in and now presents The Wind Rose, Friendship Will Win and The Peace Cycle Tour Warsaw-Berlin-Prague 1952.

The long awaited book (in German) about  Ivens and his East-German films, written by thé specialist in this field, Günter Jordan, has been published by the DEFA Foundation. This beautiful book describes in 680 pages the triumph in the 1950’s, the condemnation at the end of the 1960’s  when Ivens became persona non grata in the GDR, until the resurrection of Ivens’ DEFA-films.

Chiara Bonfiglioli recently published her splendid book chapter about the DEFA filmproduction Die Windrose (1957, The Compass Rose) of which Joris Ivens was supervisor. ‘Die Windrose is a significant example of cross-border cooperation and provides important insights on the internationalists networks that developed after 1945 between Western-Europe, the Soviet Union and the Third World.’

Since six years Tian Wang (1976, Tongxiang 桐乡), is doing research for a dissertation about Joris Ivens and Modern China between 1938 and 1988. It was Régis Debray who advised her to study Ivens’ films in the framework of the theories of French historian Marc Ferro ‘Le film, l’agent et produit de l’Histoire’. For Tian Wang it is essential not only to study paper documents, but especially to meet and speak the people involved, both in China and the West.

Prof. Ariel Heryanto from Monash University in Melbourne lectured about Joris Ivens and Indonesia Calling in Djakarta. In his vivid presentation in Bahasa Indonesia (also a version with English subtitles is available) he discussed the tensed relationships between Indonesia, Australia and The Netherlands both back then and now. The opening sequence of Ivens' film showing an Australian society with diversity could be a model for their relationships. Since 22 October, when this film made by Jakarticus, was put on-line then thous ...

On 19 October a special ceremony at the Vietnam Film Institute (VFI) celibrated the transfer of solidarity films from The Netherlands to Vietnam. The films derive from the collections of the Medical Committee Netherlands-Vietnam and the Ivens Foundation. The ceremony, about which an item was broadcasted by national TV News, had been attended by  Mr. Vuong Duy Bien, Vice Minister of Culture, Sport and Tourism, Mrs. Nienke Trooster, Ambassador of the Netherlands in Vietnam, Mr. Vu Nguyen Hung,  Director of Vietnam Film Institute, ...

On 19 October the Vietnam Film Institute (VFI) in Hanoi  is organizing a ceremony of the transfer of solidarity films from the Medical Committee Netherlands-Vietnam (MCNV) and the European Foundation Joris Ivens. Representatives of the Dutch Embassy, of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism of Vietnam, the director of the VFI , the director of the MCNV and the representative of the Ivens Foundation will be present when the 45 films will be handed over to the national film iinstute. Afterwards a study meeting will take place for ...

On 28 March the Award Ceremony of The Society of Cinema and Media Studies, the world's largest organisation devoted to the scholarly study of film and media, paid tribute to the best  film scholarship of the previous year. Prof. Thomas Waugh received the best book award for his outstanding book about the complete film oeuvre of Joris Ivens. Maryse Elliott (Amsterdam University Press) and Giovanna Fossati (EYE Filmmuseum Amsterdam), editors of the Framing Film series, attended the presentation.

NAMU in Prague, the publishing house of the Academy of Arts, presented the Czech translation of André Stufkens book Joris Ivens. Filmmaker of the World (518 pages). This Czech book explores the content, production, meaning and reception of 21 Ivens films and was first published in Dutch and German in 2008 and 2009 as part of the DVD box. Especially a chapter about the relationship between Joris Ivens and the Czech Republic has been added, focussing on the documentary The First Years.