Politics & Poetry

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 ...

Each month a guest curator presents a piece of (film)art , made by a new or relatively unknown filmmaker, with both poetic and political qualities. Joris Ivens was a political filmmaker and a poetic filmmaker altogether.. "What all my films have in common is that people are moved by something. Moved by their desire for freedom, moved by water, moved by the wind. I don't think there is any difference between Ivens filming the wind or Ivens filming revolutions," said Ivens himself in 1976. In light of this thought, we created this space for (film)artists working in the field of “Politics and Poetry”. Even though we will work with different curators each month, please feel free to suggest your own film or piece of art. You can also present yourself as a curator if you consider a film or piece of art relevant to the theme of “Politics and Poetry” and hence warrant more critical attention.

Name curator: Virginie Foloppe
Name artist: Virginie Foloppe
Title of the work you have chosen: Mister Freud it’s my pleasure to disarm you
Year of production:
Format:

Name curator: Postcolonial film
Name artist: Prasanna
Title of the work you have chosen: Muduma Kolam
Year of production:
Format:

Prasanna Ratnayake, Postcolonial Films for Amnesty International.

Name curator: Alisa Lebow
Name artist: Jasmina Metwaly
Title of the work you have chosen: Remarks on Medan (#haiku)
Year of production:
Format: 16mm

Read about the film and the curator down here:

Name curator: Alex Johnston
Name artist: Nick Macdonald
Title of the work you have chosen: No More Leadershit
English title: No More Leadershit
Year of production: 1971
Format: 16mm

Read about the film and the curator down here:

Because of hollidays there was no PandP selection in August

Name curator:Elizabeth Mizon
Name artist:Shagufta K Iqbal
Title of the work you have chosen:‘Borders’
Year of production:2015

Read the interview with the curator down here:

Name curator: Sarah Hamblin
Name artist: Abu Ali Mustafa
Title of the work you have chosen: They Do Not Exist
Year of production: 1974

Read the interview with curator Sarah Hamblin down here:

Name curator: Dominique Willaert
Name artist: Brecht Vanhoenacker
Title of the work you have chosen: De wet van het dorp
English title: The law of the village
Year of production: 2012
Format: 16:9

Read the interview with Dominique Willaert down here:

Curator: Erika Sprey
Film: Las Cosas Lindas
Director: Miguel Coyula
Year: 2017

This is one chapter of the longer film 'Nadie'. Read the interview with the curator Erika Sprey down here:

Curator: Travis Wilkerson
Films: 400 cm³ by Studio H&S, East Germany
National Archive by Travis Wilkerson, US

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An excerpt from the film '400cm3' has been replaced by the trailer of this film.
Read more about the curators choice down here.

Title: Fuera de campo (Out of field vision)
Director: Hugo Giménez
Curator: Fernando Moure
Country: Paraguay
Year: 2014
Format: HD

Interview with curator Fernando Moure down here

Name curator: Raquel Schefer
Name artist: Ana Vaz
Title of the work you have chosen: Sacris Pulso
Year of production: 2008
Format: 16-8mm transfer DVCAM | ST

Down here, you can read the interview with the curator of this film, Raquel Schafer...

Name curator: Nicole BRENEZ
Name artist: Chaab MAHMOUD
Title of the work you have chosen: Grève sauvage (la genèse)
English title: Wildcat Strike (Genesis)
Year of production: 2009
Format: digital