News

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. ...

FICBUEU HONORS THE SHORT DOCUMENTARIES OF DUTCHMAN JORIS IVENS, A LEGEND OF SOCIALLY CONSCIOUS CINEMA

The 16th Bueu International Film Festival pays tribute to Joris Ivens with both a retrospective of his short films and a splendid monograph on Ivens, written by Severiano Casalderrey. This book will be presented on Sunday 17th of Sepyember, it is the very first monograph on Ivens in the Galician language: La Expansion del documental a través de los cortometrajes de Joris Ivens (1898-1989).

Indonesia Calling at Independence Day Ceremony MuSeaum Sydney

On 17 August the MuSeaum in Sydney - aka the Australian National Maritime Museum - will organize a ceremony to commemorate Independence day of the Republic of Indonesia. Next to the presentations Ivens' short documentary film Indonesia Calling will be screened. In June prime-minister Mark Rutte of The Netherlands finally - after almost eight decades (!) - 'fully and without any reservation' acknowledged 17 August 1945 as the independence day of Indonesia.

The films of Ivens and photos of Krull reunited in an expo on Varietés

Huis Marseille, Museum for Photography in Amsterdam, presents until 22 October 2023 a special collection of avant-garde and surrealistic photographs, deriving from the Belgian art magazine Variétés dating from the 1920's. Next to 43 photos made by Germaine Krull also two films of Joris Ivens are shown permanently: Etudes des mouvements (1927, Paris, A Study in movement) and The Bridge (1928, Rotterdam). The film images of Ivens and the photos of Krull are very closely connected: these not only show the same subject matter: metal, th ...

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 ...

A dissertation about the long relationship between Ivens and China

On 21 September Tian Wang (1976, Tongxiang 桐乡) was appointed doctor after a succesful defence of her dissertation 'Joris Ivens et la Chine : histoire d'une longue relation' 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 was essential not only to study paper documents, but especially to meet and speak the people involved, both in China and the West. The 572 pages of te ...

A short film about 50 years of solidarity between The Netherlands and Quang Tri 1972-2022

The Vietnam Film Institute has produced an engaging, short film Quang Tri - 50 Years of Aspiring for Peace. This deals with various forms of solidarity between the Netherlands and Quang Tri province over half a century (1972 - 2022). This film also shows about the work of USA Veterans regarding a culture of peace and portrays Chuck Searcy the chairman of Veterans for Peace (USA) speaking about 'Building a culture of peace and healing the wounds of war'.

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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.

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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).

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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).

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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.

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After last years agreement between the Vietnamese Film Instituut and the European Foundation Joris Ivens to establish an active partnership director André Stufkens visited Vietnam on the invitation of director Vũ Nguyên Hùng. The purpose of the successful visit was to make concrete appointments further developing this collaboration of exchange of knowledge and expertise.