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 ...

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At the occasion of the launch of Thomas Waugh's masterly book The Conscience of Cinema. The Works of Joris Ivens 1926-1989, a special Joris Ivens Seminar will organized in EYE Study on 21 October 2016. Paul Kusters, president of the Ivens Foundation, will be the moderator of the day with lectures and debates focussing on 'Ivens & The Netherlands'. The programme also includes the screening of Indonesia Calling!, New Earth, The Bridge, Rotterdam-Europoort and a Q&A.

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The 13th Ubud Writers & Readers Festival is Southeast Asia’s leading festival of words and ideas. The Festival celebrates extraordinary stories, amplifies brave voices, and tackles global issues through the lens of literature and the arts. On 30 October Ivens’ Indonesia Calling! will be shown with a Q&A of Agung Rai, Anthony and Helen Liem and other guests from the Australian National Maritime Museum.

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With the bulky book 'Saviour of the Tenth Muse. Jan de Vaal and the Netherlands Filmmuseum, 1946-1987' the European Foundation Joris Ivens is presenting the treasures of the national film archive of the Netherlands, as collected, presented and preserved by Jan de Vaal (1922-2001). Until now only sporadically has been published about the pioneering activities by its first director. He started in 1946 without anything, no film, no money, no housing, nog experience and no personnel. After 40 years he left the film museum with 15 Million meters of film, 300.000 photo's, 35.000 film posters, 10.000 film books, 220.000 clippings and other documents and 1.100 cameras and other film objects. For The Netherlands his work ment the saving of an art, the saving of the Tenth Muse. The presentation of the book is on 2 September in EYE Filmmuseum Amsterdam.

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The director of the Vietnames Film Institute gave a precious present to the Ivens Foundation, when both FIAF-institutions met in Nijmegen on Thursday 30th of June. Mr. Dao Quoc Hung (on the photo: second from the left side) handed over the found footage of Ivens' visits to Vietnam when Ivens started filmmaking durign the war against the US in 1965. Most of the footage concerns outtakes of Le ciel, la terre (1966) and various meetings in North-Vietnam. Next year the Vitenames Film Institute will commemorate the 50th anniversay of The Threatening Sky (Le 17e parallèle) with a conference and retrospective.

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Museo Reina Sofia in Madrid is presenting a film programme called “Por un cine imposible. Documental y vanguardia en Cuba (1959-1972)” (“For an impossible cinema. Documentary and Vanguard in Cuba (1959-1972)”), from 20 June till 9 July 2016. Curator is Cuban cinema specialist Michael Chanan, with support of the Cinemateca de Cuba. The two Cuban films of Joris Ivens: Carnet de viaje y Cuba and Pueblo armado will be shown, next to films of Santiago Álvarez, Sara Gómez, Octavio Cortázar and Julio García Espinosa.

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The Sächsische Staatskapelle in Dresden will performing a live concert with film screening of Rain (Regen, Ivens-Franken 1929) during the 7th Shostakovich-Days. The Final concert programs Ludwig von Beethoven, Dmitri Shostakovich, Paul Dessau and Hanns Eislers Fourteen Ways to Describe Rain (1941) with the film.

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Hannover based ensemble musica assoluta took Joris Ivens’ Rain as the starting point to combine two genres: music and film. They present pieces inspired by water or rain on Friday 20 and Saturday 21 May. Apart from the screening of Rain, the audience in Hannover and Göttingen gets to watch and listen to a new composition by Thorsten Encke and a new movie by Ali Mauritz and Bernd Wolter.