News

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 ...

Absurd spy thriller about Ivens and Van Dongen is indeed absurd

The Second Stage production of Spain in the Tony Kiser Theater in New York presented in December '23 a play about The Spanish Earth with Joris Ivens, Helen van Dongen, Ernest Hemingway and John Dos Passos as the protagonists. Jen Silverman writes that Spain is not “a history play in the most conventional meaning.” It’s “set in 1936 in the West Village,” she says, then adds, “Sort of.” "This 90-minute comedy-drama is an absurdist-tinged fantasy that seizes a moment of history and bends it to the breaking point", she continues. And ...

A performance of Rain at a Climate Change programme

During a concert at the 'Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy' University of Music and Theater in Leipzig the subject of Climate Change was íllustrated' by Ivens' film Rain/Regen (1929) accompanying Hanns Eisler’s "14 Arten den Regen zu beschreiben" (*Fourteen Ways to Describe Rain). In a packed great concert hall this magnificent performance became a marvellous highlight of the night. The musicians played with energy, joy and much competence. Hanns Eislers and Joris Ivens art works were much appreciated by the audience and critics as well.The initia ...

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 ...

How an Ivens film helps to reconstruct cultural heritage in Valparaiso

In 1963 Joris Ivens made, together with students from the university in Santiago de Chile, a poetic film mosaic of the Chilean harbour city Valparaiso, called …à Valparaiso. This film is part of the cultural heritage of this city, in 2003 elected UNESCO World heritage. Amanda Panizza Hevia published a plan to reconstruct the Casa de Los Siete Espejos (‘The House with Seven Mirrors’) as part of a new department of the regional archives of Valparaiso. ...

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)

Ivens Meets China

After years of preparations and research, professor Zhang Tongdao (University of Beijing) and Dutch filmmaker René Seegers finalized their four-part television series about Joris Ivens. In each part of 50 minutes one of Ivens’s Chinese films is key: 1- The 400 Million (1938); 2- Before Spring (1958); 3- How Yukong Moved the Mountains (1976) and 4- A Tale of the Wind (1988).

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 ...

Details: Category: News

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 thousands watched the film.

Details: Category: News

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, Mr Guus Paardekooper, Director Medical Committee Netherlands-Vietnam, Mrs. Xian Phuong (assistant during the Ivens films) and Ad Spijkers, advisor of the Ivens Foundation. This event marked a next step in the partnership between the VFI an dth eIvens Foundation, which will result in an Ivens-Conference in November 2018.

Details: Category: News

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 the personnel of the VFI (200 collaborators).

Details: Category: News

Almost 30 years ago Joris Ivens was awarded Honorary Citizen of his birthplace Nijmegen, thanks to mayor Ien Dales. Ivens himself, together with Marceline Loridan-Ivens, opened in October 1987 a small film theater in Cinemariënburg during the ceremonies. In a new renovated wing of the present film art house LUX (250.000 visitors per year) on 15 September again a new 'Joris Ivens cinema' will be opened. This cinema room is part of Studio LUX, especially dedicated to film education.

Details: Category: News

Joris Ivens: 'Around the World in 80 Films'

Almost 30 years ago jaar Ivens himelf was present at the opening of a cinema in the Nijmegen filmtheater Cinemarienburg. On 15 September again a new Joris Ivens cinema will opened at the present art house/filmtheater LUX (250.000 visitors a year). This cinema is part of Studio LUX, a new wing of the building especially dedicated to a national pilot, a pioneering film educational HUB with film lab.

Details: Category: News

This month (july, 2017) we have a film made by Elizabeth Mizon for our initiative 'Politics and Poetry'.
Selected by Shagufta K Iqbal.

Watch the film and read the interview with the curator here.

Details: Category: News

The winner of the 2017 Prix Joris Ivens/Joris Ivens Award at the International Documentary Film Festival Cinéma du reel in Centre Pompidou, Paris, is young Syrian filmmaker Yaser Kassab with his second film On the Edge of Life / Ala hafet al-Hayat (45’). The award for debute films is granted with 7.500 euros by Marceline Loridan-Ivens, Les Amis du Cinéma du reel and CNAP, The National center for Viusla Arts (Cnap).

Details: Category: News

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.