Experimental Film in the Netherlands

Experimental film in the NetherlandsFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Experimental filmmakers ask whether things could not be done differently. Underground films analyseand critique the mainstream film industry. They step back and reflect. Simultaneously, they take forwardleaps to assess new options. Sometimes the makers are self-taught visual artists who make innovativework thanks to their original point of view. Other filmmakers primarily play with the medium film andseek an alternative to the dominant visual culture.[1]

Contents1 The 1920s2 The 1960s3 The 1980s4 The 1990s5 2000 to the present6 References7 External links

The 1920sThe history of Dutch experimental or avant-garde film dates back to the 1920s. 1927 saw the publicationof a manifesto for the founding of the Filmliga. The movement's leaders Menno ter Braak and E. duPerron's embraced free film art, paying particular attention to the editing, rhythm and composition offilms. The Filmliga movement includes the Soviet avant-garde inspired documentaries of Joris Ivens, thescientific films of J.C. Mol (who evoked an aesthetic, abstract world with his 'Het rijk der kristallen') andthe work of Alexander von Barsy, Paul Schuitema, Willem Bon and Mannus Franken.[2]

The 1960sAfter a lull during the 1930s and 1940s, primarily a time of playful, poetic films by Bert Haanstra('Spiegel van Nederland') and Emiel van Moerkerken ('Koekoekswals'), international avant-garde filmunderwent a renaissance in 1949 with the foundation of the Exprmntl Festival in Knokke-Le-Zoute.Later editions of the festival would screen films by Johan van der Keuken ('Lucebert, dichter-schilder',1962) and Wim van der Linden/Wim T. Schippers, who filmed a motionless bunch of tulips that drops asingle petal at the very end, for their sad movie 'Tulips' (1966). 1967 saw the founding of The NewElectric Cinema in Eindhoven, which organised happenings involving music concrete made withvacuum cleaners combined with found footage material.

In 1970, Frans Zwartjes started teaching at the Vrije Academie in The Hague where he became aninfluential mentor to an entire generation of artists such as Jan Ketelaars, Gijs Schneemann, Matthijs

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Blonk, George Schouten and Ruud Monster, who constituted the so-called Haagse Psychopolis school.Zwartjes formulated his method as follows:

I don't tell them anything. They have to work it out for themselves. There are no rules.[citation needed]

The 1960s saw the rise of a group of young filmmakers who had been trained at the NederlandseFilmacademie which was founded in 1958. This new generation, led by Wim Verstappen, Pim de laParra, Nikolai van der Heyde and Adriaan Ditvoorst, saw themselves as revolutionaries and wanted togive the staid film world a rude awakening. In this respect they were aligned with the Nouvelle Vagueand the Neue Deutsche Film.

The epicentre of experimental film up until 1974 was the Electric Cinema, run by STOFF employeesBarbara Meter, Mattijn Seip, Nico Paape and Jos Schoffelen. Barbara Meter on those turbulent times:

You didn't have to fight your way through the hierarchy, but could just grab a camera andget to work.[citation needed]

Visual artists who used the medium film constituted a relatively independent development withinexperimental film in the 1960s. The work of Shinkichi Tajiri, who lived in the Netherlands, attractedattention from the early 1960s onwards and from the end of that decade, he was joined by conceptualartists such as Jan Dibbets, Bas Jan Ader, Peter Struycken, Marinus van Boezem, Ger van Elk andMichel Cardena.[3] In the 1970s, movements such as structuralist film lost ground and were replaced byfilms with a critical subtext. Together with Willum Thijssen and Paul de Mol, Peter Rubin foundedHolland Experimental Film (HEF) the principal goal of which was to screen Dutch experimental filmsabroad.

The 1980sThis decade is known as the golden age of video art. The latter's breakthrough in the Netherlands wasthe Sonsbeek buiten de perken festival in Arnhem in 1972. From 1985 to 1995, the AV festival wasorganised in Arnhem, which later morphed into the Hard Kijken festival. The World Wide Videofestivaltook place for the first time in 1982. Two years later the exhibition The Illuminous Light was organisedat the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. And the Impakt Festival was founded in 1988. In their work,conceptual artists such as Dibbets, Van Elk, Boezem, Struycken and the Columbian Raoul Marroquinwho resided in the Netherlands, experimented with video. Other important filmmakers from the 1980swere Frank Scheffer, Noud Heerkens, Gerard Holthuis, Ruud Monster, Frederieke Jochems and AndrasHamelberg, Pieter Moleveld and Barbara Meter, who started working again after a 10 year break.[4] TheKunstkanaal a weekly video art show on cable TV in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague, wasfounded in 1987.

The 1990sScreening opportunities arose for a new generation of filmmakers thanks to the founding of Cinema DeBalie in 1996, the professionalisation of the Nederlands Instituut voor Mediakunst and the Mind The


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Gap evenings at De Unie in Rotterdam. During the 1990s new initiatives, such as Studio En in Arnhem(later De Werkplaats in Rotterdam), the Filmstad foundation in The Hague and Lazy Marie in Utrecht,primarily focused on the production of 8 mm or 16 mm, low-budget films. During the 1990s, filmmakerssuch as Joost Rekveld, Aryan Kaganof, Jeroen Eisinga, Karel Doing, Francien van Everdingen, Lonnievan Brummelen, Jan Willem van Dam and Martha Colburn garnered attention. The decade also saw aresurgence of experimental animation and abstract film. Joost Rekveld had the following to say about hislight films that are all made without a camera and are all named after prime numbers:

To me, maths is not a cult of numbers and abstractions. It is very concrete.[citation needed]

2000 to the presentIn the preceding years, experimental film seemed to be overshadowed by video art, but during the earlyyears of the 21st century, it once again attracted attention, particularly from artists. (source: mm2) DeFilmbank, which inventories, presents and distributes contemporary Dutch experimental film in all sortsof ways (through rental, entries to Dutch and foreign film festivals, publications and DVDs), wasfounded in 2001 by Karel Doing, Anna Abrahams, Peter Van Hoof and others. The Filmmuseumconserves experimental films in the framework of the 'Collectie Nederland van de Experimentele Film'project, this was followed by a Filmbank tour which included films by Barbara Meter, Henri Plaat andFrans Zwartjes. Plaat refers to his films as 'incantations', Meter refers to a

proposal to experience time and space differently

and Zwartjes says:

The only useful answer to the crap around you is art.[5]

Rotterdam gained another screening venue with the Worm, while the Rotterdamse Filmwerkplaatsorganises workshops for filmmakers. The Filmmuseum also conserved another selection of the Dutchexperimental heritage and this was screened at the festival Filmmuseum Experimenteel in 2008.

References^ Abrahams/Graveland/Van Hart/Van Hoof (ed.), (2004), 'mm2, Experimentele Film in Nederland sinds1960', Amsterdam: Filmbank/Uitgeverij De Balie, pp 79

1.

^ Linssen, Cline, 'Het gaat om de film' (1999), Amsterdam Bas Lubberhuizen/NederlandsFilmmuseum/Voorhuis, Nelly, mm2, pp 30

2.

^ Filmmuseum (http://experimentele.filminnederland.nl)3.^ mm2 / Filmmuseum (http://experimentele.filminnederland.nl)4.^ www.filmbank.nl (http://www.www.filmbank.nl)5.

External links

Cinema De Balie: www.debalie.nl(http://www.debalie.nl

/podiumpagina.jsp?podiumid=cinema)Dziga: www.dziga.nl (http://www.dziga.nl)De Filmbank: www.filmbank.nl


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(http://www.filmbank.nl)FilmbankTV: www.filmbanktv.nl(http://www.filmbanktv.nl)Filmmuseum:experimentele.filminnederland.nl(http://experimentele.filminnederland.nl)Impakt: www.impakt.nl(http://www.www.impakt.nl)International Film Festival Rotterdam:www.filmfestivalrotterdam.com(http://www.filmfestivalrotterdam.com)Kunstkanaal: www.kunstkanaal.nl(http://www.kunstkanaal.nl)Lazy Marie: www.lazymarie.nl(http://www.lazymarie.nl)Media Art Friesland:

www.mediaartfriesland.nl(http://www.mediaartfriesland.nl)Nederlands Film Festival:www.filmfestival.nl(http://www.filmfestival.nl)The Netherlands Media Art Institute,Montevideo/Time Based Arts: www.nimk.nl(http://www.nimk.nl)O & O: www.filmfund.nl/ontwikkeling_o_o(http://www.filmfund.nl/ontwikkeling_o_o)Smart Project Space:www.smartprojectspace.net(http://www.smartprojectspace.net)Worm: www.wormweb.nl(http://www.wormweb.nl)

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Experimental Film in the Netherlands