Towards a history of the Association Internationale des Documentaristes (A.I.D.)

Since 1999 the European Foundation Joris Ivens is keeping the archives of the World Union of Documentarists (W.U.D., 1947-1957) and Association Internationale des Documentaristes (1964-1999). Joris Ivens was board member of both associations. In recent years Argentinian film historian Mariano Mestman did thorough research after the A.I.D., among others in this collection in Nijmegen, which results in various publications.

Nguyen Thi Xuan Phuong: A Living Legend

Now 97, Mrs. Nguyen Thi Xuan Phuong remains remarkably lucid. Her calm yet resolute voice carries memories that stretch across nearly a century, as vivid as if those chapters of history had never receded. One of these chapters covers her collaboration between 1965 and 1970 with Joris Ivens and Marceline Loridan-Ivens during the production of three films about the war for unification, independence and peace in Vietnam. In 2011, she was honored by the French government with the Legion of Honour. In 2024, she was named among the BBC’s 100 most i ...

Spanish translation of The Camera and I, Ivens' first autobiography, published

The small independent publisher Bastante in Santiago, Chile, will soon release the first Spanish edition of Joris Ivens’ first autobiography, The Camera and I: La cámara y yo.Vicente Braithwaite has been working on this publication since 2024. In Ivens’ first autobiography, he describes the period up to 1946, followed by a chapter that briefly covers the years 1945 to 1967. Because Ivens is not a historian but an artist, not all historical facts are entirely accurate; in particular, the description of *The Spanish Earth* is personal and fi ...

Caroline Hoebens' dissertation about Ivens' film music

On October 10, 2025, Caroline Hoebens received her Ph.D. from Utrecht University for a dissertation on the film music in the films of Joris Ivens. This marks the first time that the music and sound, as employed by Ivens in his films, have been the subject of a comprehensive study. Joris Ivens himself played the piccolo, a small transverse flute, which may explain his sensitivity to the use of music. Wind instruments, in particular, play such an important role in the music for A Tale of the Wind (1988), composed by Michel Portal. As a true avant ...

THE GAMELAN DIGUL of INDONESIA CALLING

Anthony Liem wrote a text about the history of the Gamelan Digul, the first gamelan in Australia, which is an important historical object illustrating the fight for Indonesian independance against Dutch colonial rule. This gamelan is at display at the Monash University, Performing Arts Centre in Melbourne in the Margaret Kartomi Gallery.

Andries Deinum and a find of The Camera and I

After some 80 years after it was written by Ivens, a bound typoscript of his first autobiography The Camera and I, was found in Portland, Oregon, USA. Ella Thomas, who is for 32 years Director of Education for the Northwest Film Center, the Northwest region's largest and most comprehensive film arts organization, writes how she found it:

Oscar Winning '20 Days in Mariupol' (2023) and Ivens's '40 Days in Madrid' (1937)

When watching Mstyslav Chernov’s Oscar-winning film 20 Days in Mariupol, Alex Vernon, professor in English and specialist in 20th century war-literature, could not but see parallels with The Spanish Earth. This documentary by Joris Ivens, John Fernhout and Ernest Hemingway was the result of 40 days of film shooting in besieged Madrid in 1937. Both films draws on personal footage with an harrowing account of civilians caught in the siege, in 1936 a new kind of warfare.

European Film Academy honors Ivens and Liftbridge as Treasure of European Film Culture

The European Film Academy (EFA) honors Joris Ivens, The Bridge (1928) and the vertical-lift bridge in Rotterdam (Koningshaven Bridge) by including it as Treasures of European Film Culture. It is for the first time that a Dutch filmmaker and location is included in this growing list of in the meanwhile 49 European locations in 24 countries, which or of extreme importance for the European film culture. According to the EFA these places of historical value need to be maintained and protected not just now but also for generations to come.Famou ...

'Selling a Colonial War' proofs Dutch propaganda and censorship

After Joris Ivens made Indonesia Calling (1946) he was immedialtely accused of anti-Dutch propapaganda. Officers of the Secret Service also immediately proposed to withdraw Ivens'passport. Not in 1951, but already in 1945. In a new documentary Selling a Colonial War filmmaker In-Soo Radstake casts a broad view of perpectives, among others a remarkable view of former Dutch minister of foreign affairs Ben Bot. He confirms that it was the Dutch government itself which used pure propaganda, censorship and concealing language to disinform or not inf ...

A Gift of Ivens films

Recently the Ivens Foundation received six reels of a working copy of The 17th Parallel (1968). Laurence Lefèvre gave these reels to André Stufkens in her place in Montreuil. She got this working copy from her sister, the late Liliane Korb, who passed away in 2022. At the age of 26 Liliane Korb edited this long documentary about the peoples war and fight for independence of the Vietnamese people against the US occupation. Previously the Ivens Foundation also received an old print of Borinage from the Limburg Museum. Liliane Korb Lilia ...

Women and the Far East in The 400 Million

During the Hanns Eisler Discourse at Humboldt University in Berlin on 5 and 6 November Japanese scholar Chiharu Wada (Meiji-Gakuin University, Tokyo) will lecture about Women and the Far East in the documentary The 400 Million (USA, 1939). Joris Ivens' documentary The 400 Million deliberately presents a "new" image of China, where women and men study together, "as in America". It is Ivens' perspective for a modern Chinese society in which women are equal to men, although this representation did not really matched reality in society i ...

Looking for my father in an Ivens film

Recently a citizen from Montpellier travelled 1200 kilometres to visit the Joris Ivens Archives in order to find his biological father. There are many reasons why people around the world consult the Ivens collection, but this is a very special and personal one. He wanted to look for his father, which he has never known and met, in Ivens’ documentary Peace Will Win (1951)

Picasso Shared and Divided: The Artist and His Image in East and West Germany

In 1951 Joris Ivens met Pablo Picasso during a visit to his atelier in Vaucluses. Marion Michelle made a series of photos of them, together with poet Jacques Prévert, which are on display at the exhibition about 'Picasso: Shared and Divided' in Museum Ludwig, Cologne (25 September 2021-30 January 2022). After the Second World War Picasso was 'a hero of the left' and used in this way. His dove, symbol for world peace, became a tool for propaganda in the Eastern Bloc. What do we associate with Pablo Picasso today? A ...

Project of a Book on the History of FIAF

FIAF, in partnership with the Jan de Vaal Fund, invites film historians to submit proposals for thematic chapters as part of a forthcoming book on the 82-year history of the International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF), both as an institution and as a coherent global community with its shared values, cultural missions, professional practices, scientific methods, and collaborative projects. The European Foundation Joris Ivens is an associate of FIAF since 2002 and André Stufkens is participating as co-editor of the book, together with Chris ...

The provenance of the W.U.D.-A.I.D.
Thanks to Bert Hogenkamp and Miryam van Lier, who in the 1990s published about these two unique historical interest groups for and of documentary filmmakers (1), the collection which they assembled during their research was given to the EFJI. The collection consisted among others of rare interviews with important documentary filmmakers who were part of either one or both organizations. Because Joris Ivens from the start of his career had a special interest in not only the practice of filmmaking, but also in other aspects of the complete chain of film production, distribution and archiving he contributed in an active way in groups dedicated to stimulate a continuous and assured system of documentary film production. He became one of the founding board members of the Dutch Filmliga in 1927, which triggered him and others to start an independent film production in The Netherlands. The National Film Board of Canada, established in 1939 with Scottish filmmaker John Grierson at the head, was a model which according to Ivens needed following in other countries. In the same year Joris Ivens was appointed president of the Association of Documentary Film Producers (A.D.F.P.) in the USA, thanks to the preparatory work of Mary Losey, the sister of Joseph Losey. She went to the UK to study various institutions aiming to commission and/or produce a steady stream of documentary films. Back in the USA she wrote a plan for the USA with a similar purpose. This ambitious A.D.F.P. counted amongst its members outstanding filmmakers like Robert Flaherty, John Grierson, Luis Bunuel, Richard Griffith, Paul Strand, Joseph Losey, Willard Van Dyke, Alexander Hackenschmied, Herbert Kline, James Beveridge, Leo Hurwitz, Irving Lerner, Leo Seltzer and Ralph Steiner.
During the World Exhibition in Brussels 1947 again documentary filmmakers from all parts of the world crossing political and geographical borders, gathered for a new attempt to unite and strengthen their position. Once more Joris Ivens committed himself to this mission as vice-president of the World Union of Documentarists (W.U.D.). The fourth attempt flourished in 1964, when the A.I.D. was founded in October during the Mannheim Film Festival by some of the world’s most prominent documentarists: John Grierson (United Kingdom) as president; Joris Ivens (Holland), Georges Rouquier (France) and Richard Leacock (United States) as vice presidents; Gian Vittorio Baldi (Italy) as general secretary; Henri Storck (Belgium) as treasurer, and the following members: Jean Rouch (France), Edgar Anstey (United Kingdom), Roger Leenhardt (France), Roussos Coundouros (Greece), Jerzy Bossak (Poland), Margot Benacerraf (Venezuela), Nelo Risi (Italy) and Jørgen Roos (Denmark).

Mariano Mestman at the Joris Ivens Archives in Nijmegen, 16 May 2023. With the inventorylist of the W.U.D.-A.I.D.

Research
In 2023-24 Mariano Mestman visited various archives (John Grierson Archives, Henri Storck Archives, W.U.D.-A.I.D. in the Joris Ivens Archives) to study especially the activities of the A.I.D. In Nijmegen also the Marion Michelle Collection established by Marion Michelle, who was a voluntary secretary of the A.I.D., was most helpful to reconstruct the Congress in Algiers in 1968. February, Algiers hosted the Second General Assembly and First Congress of the Association Internationale des Documentaristes (AID).

Mestmans’ research resulted in:
- Mestman, Mariano, Towards a History of the International Association of Documentary Filmmakers (AID), The Congress of Algiers 1968. The Intellect Handbook of Documentary, 2025, pp 202-219
- Mestman, Mariano (forthcoming 2026), ‘Professional cooperation and international solidarity in the early years of the International Association of Documentary Filmmakers (1964–1967)’, in M. Croombs and M. Salazkina (eds), Cinemas of Global Solidarity.

The AID was officially dissolved in 1999 during IDFA in Amsterdam in teh presence of Henri Storck and Marion Michelle, but it was particularly active during its first decade of existence, i.e. until the mid-1970s. Although there were individuals that took a leading role at different times, the Association was undoubtedly a collective transnational initiative, which brought together political perspectives that were often diverse, and in some sense tried to institutionalize the relationships between different generations as well as between different schools of documentary filmmaking.

1- Hogenkamp, Bert ( 1989 ), ‘Internationale Organisationen der Dokumentaristen: “World Union of Documentary ” und “Association Internationale des Documentaristes”’, Bulletin Europäisches Dokumentarfilm Institut, 0, pp. 6–9.
Hogenkamp, Bert (1999), ‘Definitions and divisions: The international documentary film movement from 1946 to 1964’, in International Documentary Filmfestival Amsterdam Catalogue, Amsterdam: IDFA, pp. 160–65.
Hogenkamp, Bert (2006), ‘Association Internationale des Documentaristes’, in I. Aitken (ed.), Encyclopedia of the Documentary Film, 1, New York: Routledge, pp. 53–54.
Van Lier, Miryam (1999), ‘Better to have a big useless noise than none at all. The Association Internationale des Documentaristes, 1964–1999’, in International Documentary Filmfestival, Amsterdam, 1999, Catalogue, Amsterdam: IDFA, pp. 166–70.