The European Foundation Joris Ivens, established in 1990 in memory of the life and work of Joris Ivens, has its office in his birthtown Nijmegen, The Netherlands.

 

Objective
The European Foundation Joris Ivens has an international, in particular European orientation. It aims at: 1. Maintaining and promoting the repute of the life and work of Joris Ivens with the public, especially by managing the Joris Ivens Archives in order to make them accessible to an interested public; 2. Creating a meeting-point for film makers and promoting the art of documentary films made from a humanitarian point of view.

 

Programme
With regard to archival activities the Foundation has set itself the following tasks: - looking for and acquiring and/or controlling records (documents, posters, photo graphs, etc.) and audio-visual products (with the exception of films) relating to the life and work of Joris Ivens; - preserving the collection which came into being in this way: - opening up, listing and making available the collected material; - collecting and making available general information about Joris Ivens.

 

Activities
On the strength of the general task the Foundation organises various activities, in particular: 
- initiating, advising, supervising and/or supporting projects referring to the life and work of Joris Ivens; 
- organising meetings, exhibitions, festivals, conferences, etc.; 
- initiating and supporting activities relating to the advancement of the creative documentary film; 
- co-operating with similar organisations.

 

For interested people a newsletter will appear once a year to inform them of the latest situation about the Ivens collection and about Foundation activities. Interested people, film makers, researchers and institutions organising projects round Joris Ivens or the creative documentary film can apply for information or questions to the Foundation office.

 

The office 

Since september 1997 the European Foundation Joris Ivens resides in Joris Ivens` birthtown Nijmegen, the Netherlands. The archives are kept in the Municipal Archives of Nijmegen. The office of the foundation is nearby the archives. From here we develop our activities.

When you need information or when you are doing a research on Joris Ivens, his films, or on documentary in general you can contact us, or explore the Joris Ivens Archives to find what you are looking for. We will try to help you where we can. If you want to organize something in relation to Joris Ivens and you think we might be a help to you, just contact us so we can see what we can do, or just inform us, for we like to know what happens elsewhere concerning Joris Ivens.

 

The board

On 17 September 1990 the European Foundation Joris Ivens was formally founded by Marceline Loridan-Ivens, following the wish of Joris Ivens himself to found an independent institution to keep his archives and to develop activities in relation to Documentary. In 2012 new boardmembers joined the foundation: 

Prof. Dr. Bert Hogenkamp (1951, The Netherlands)

Prof. Dr. Bert Hogenkamp is filmhistorian, specialized in documentary filmhistory. He studied history at the University of Amsterdam and obtained his PHD at the Westminister College. He is media-historian at the Netherlands Audiovisual Archive, what is called the ‘Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision’ since 2002 where he is the head of the department ‘research’. He is professor at the university of Utrecht and after that at the VU University in Amsterdam, holder of the Sound and Vision seat. He published standard reference works about the Dutch documentary history. In the seventies, he supported the international travelling exhibition of the Ivens-exposition and the restoration of the nitrate-films of Ivens in the Dutch Filmmuseum . Hogenkamp is boardmember of the Henri Storck Foundation and president of Studio Nieuwe Gronden. In the board of the ESJI he is general committee member.

Liang Luo, PhD (1974, China) 

Dr. Liang Luo is an associate professor of Chinese studies at the University of Kentucky in the United States. She holds a Ph.D. in East Asian languages and civilizations from Harvard University and an M.A. in comparative and world literature from Beijing Normal University. Her interest in avant-garde artists in China and their relationship with western avant-gardists introduced her to Joris Ivens. Her first book, The Avant-Garde and the Popular in Modern China: Tian Han and the Intersection of Performance and Politics, is published by the University of Michigan Press in 2014. She is currently working on two book-length projects, tentatively titled The Lure of the White Snake: From Folk Tales to Popular Culture, and Joris Ivens, the International Avant-garde, and Modern China. She is a book review editor for the Journal of Asian Studies and serves as a research professor at the Ewha Institute for the Humanities in Seoul, South Korea in 2014-2015. On the board of the EFJI, she is a general committee member.

André Stufkens (1955, The  Netherlands)

André Stufkens was director of the European Foundation from July 1997 until November 2018. He studied at the Academy of Visual Arts in Arnhem and was a teacher in film, photograpy, art history and visual arts. As an archivist he succeeded in expanding the Joris Ivens Archive with 200% and created a platform for on-line consultation of the Ivens-documents. The Ivens Foundation initiated and/or supported the past twenty years activities in 43 countries. On Ivens he organised exhibitions (a.o. 'Passages, Joris Ivens and the arts of this century', 1999-2000 Museum Het Valkhof; 'Cinema without Borders. The films of Joris Ivens', Lincoln Center, New York and National Gallery, Washington, 2002) and published books, like Rondom Joris Ivens, het begin 1898-1934 (1988) and Joris Ivens Wereldcineast (Joris Ivens Filmmaker of the World; translated into German and Czech). He received the 'Il Cinema Ritrovato Best DVD Award' of the Film festival of Bologan (2009) for the Joris Ivens DVD boxset (The Netherlands, France, Germany, Austria), was granted the Prince Bernhard Culture Award of the province of Gelderland (2009), was awarded the royal medal Knight in the Order of Orange-Nassau (2010), and received the Silver Waalbrugspeld (2018). In 2002 he was the co-founder of the Maelwael-Van Lymborch Foundation, promoting the art of the world famous medival artists family originating from Nijmegen, of which he was the president and director. He published with Clemens Verhoeven the book 'Johan Maelwael and the Van Lymborch Brothers.Founding fathers of Dutch Art' (Vantilt 2017) and initiated and produced the scholarly international series Maelwael Van Lymborch Studies (Breposl Publishers, Turnhout, Chicago, Thessaloniki 2018). His book about Jan de Vaal and the history of the Netherlands Filmmuseum was nominated for the Louis Hartlooper Pirze 2017 (best film book).   

Former board members: 
Henri Lange (Paris, 1990-1994, lawyer)
Martijn Sanders (Amsterdam, 1990-1994, president filmmuseum)
F.C.J. Ketelaar (The Hague, 1990-1997, state archivist)
Jean-Paul Sergent (Paris, 1990-2003, filmmaker, journalist)
Bert Hogenkamp (Amsterdam, 1992-1995, film researcher)
Marja Alofs (Nijmegen, 1999-2003, alderman)
Ed d`Hondt (Nijmegen, 1997-2001, mayor of Nijmegen)
Dan van Golberdinge (IJmuiden, 1995-2004) 
Guusje ter Horst (Nijmegen, 2001-2005, mayor of Nijmegen)
Loridan-Ivens-Rozenberg (1990-2011)
Claude Brunel (1990-2011)     
José-Manuel Costa (1999-2011)
Tineke de Vaal (2001-2010)
Marc Vernet (2003-2012)
Jan Roelofs (2006-2012)
Sabine Lenk (2009-2013)

Marc Dankbaar (2011-2013)

Cornelis Nooteboom (2011-2013) †

Dr. Sylvain De Bleeckere (België 2012-2015, philosopher and cultural scientist)
Dr.Ralf Schenk (Berlin, 2012-2015, film historian, selection committee Berlinale and DOK Leipzig )
Paul Kusters (Arnhem, 2012-2018, film scholar, politician)
Nanne Kusters ( Nijmegen, 2016-2018, law student)
Marien van der Heijden (Amsterdam, 2014-2018, archivist International Institute of Social History)
Ed Borsboom (Hilversum, 2013-2018, film scholar)