In May 2022, Film faculty Patricia Pisters introduced Spaceship Earth and Silent Running, two visionary films on attempts to live in cooperation and co-creation with nature, in Eye Filmmuseum as part of their Cinema Ecologica program. In addition, Pisters wrote a long read entitled ‘Who Owns the Future?’ exploring the cinematic visions of our planet’s future portrayed during the preceding half century, which is now available on the Eye website.
Category Archives: Events
REVOLUSI! The Indonesian revolution depicted
From 11-29 March 2022 the Rijksmuseum and Eye present Revolusi! Both institutions will, with films, talks and other events, introduce you to the Indonesian war of decolonisation. The film museum will screen a program of Indonesian ‘battle films’ of which some have never been seen in the Netherlands before. Film Faculty member Arnoud Arps will introduce two of these films: Kadet 1947 on Friday March 11 and Soegija on Sunday March 13.
Public lecture series This is Film! Film Heritage in Practice
Eye Filmmuseum presents the 8th edition of This is Film! Film Heritage in Practice, a public lecture series devoted to notable projects in the fields of film restoration and film heritage. Under the overarching theme of Global Audiovisual Archiving, also this year’s theme of the Eye International Conference, international scholars and archival practitioners showcase and discuss archival practices from all over the globe. Each of the six sessions will highlight different institutional and non-institutional efforts and archival practices worldwide. Together with guests, we explore topics like film heritage in Brazil, forgotten female film directors from Indonesia, the African Film Heritage Project, the efforts of the Asian Film Archive and the Southeast Asia-Pacific Audiovisual Archive Association, non-institutional practices in Latin America, and the Cinematheque Beirut project. This year’s guests are all members of the Advisory Board of the Eye International Conference on Global Audiovisual Archiving.
Humanitarian Communication Thesis Prize 2021
On Friday, March 4, 2022, the ceremony event of the Humanitarian Communication Thesis Prize 2021 will take place in cultural student centre CREA in Amsterdam. After an absence of one year, it is the third time that the Expertise Centre Humanitarian Communication (HuCom), which is co-directed by Film Faculty member Emiel Martens, awards this prize for the best master’s thesis on humanitarian communication and the representation of international development. The hybrid event, which can be followed both on location and online, will be held from 15:15-17:15hrs in CREA’s theatre and includes the screening of the short film Without Shoes, You Won’t Survive (2021) and presentations by the nine nominees.
LIVE CINEMA SHOW WITH FILMMAKER VINCENT MOON
On March 11, 2022, Faculty member Amir Vudka will be hosting a live cinema show featuring a special site-specific performance by filmmaker and artist Vincent Moon in De Nieuwe Regentes in The Hague. Moving between the realms of documentary creation, ethnographic research, and filmic experimentation, Moon’s show will explore the poetry at the heart of personal and collective rituals, with films taken on every continent, in collaboration with hundreds of communities around the world.
Archival Screening Night Roadshow
On Wednesday, November 17, at 7.30pm, the Dutch branch of the Association of Moving Image Archivists (AMIA), associated with our Film Faculty, hosts the Archival Screening Night Roadshow, an (free!) evening of 20 films and videos from archives and archivists around the world. The Archival Screening Night Roadshow is a veritable treasure from the world’s archives and archivists featuring more than twenty astonishing films and videos in 100 minutes. This cinematic ‘Cabinet of Wonders’ features films from Mexico, Thailand, and New Zealand, an appearance by Louis Jordan and the Tympany Five, a dancing bobcat, Baltimore breakdancing including the Chocolate Boogie, Jack Lemmon’s first screening appearance as a helpless soldier, and many more. It is not possible to make reservations. Tickets can be claimed at the bar half an hour before the film starts. You will need to show your QR code.
CFP EYE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE 2022
From May 29-31, 2022, Eye Filmmuseum, the University of Amsterdam (UvA), Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis (ASCA), and the Association of Moving Image Archivists (AMIA) will present the 7th Eye International Conference on ‘Global Audiovisual Archiving: Exchange of Knowledge and Practices’. The call for proposals is now open and the deadline to apply is 16 January 2022. The conference organizers encourage proposals from participants, archives, and regions that are underrepresented in conferences related to audiovisual heritage, discussing topics that highlight concrete, urgent, practical concerns, and threats to collections.
Call for submissions for the Humanitarian Communication Thesis Prize 2021
The Expertise Centre for Humanitarian Communication, with Film Faculty member Emiel Martens as Co-Director, is currently inviting submissions for their Humanitarian Communication Thesis Prize 2021. Have you recently (i.e. between January 1, 2020 and September 1, 2021) completed your master’s thesis on humanitarian communication or the representation of international development? Then consider submitting it by November 1, 2021.
Sounds of Silence Festival at the end of the month
The Sounds of Silence Festival exposes the timeless beauty of silent cinema and explores its interaction with contemporary music and art. This year the festival is held from October 28-30 in Theater De Nieuwe Regentes in The Hague. Film faculty member Amir Vudka is the Artistic Director of the festival and Asli Özgen-Havekotte, another Film Faculty member, will give a lecture about women filmmakers of silent cinema.
Psychedelica and Media
In 1969, philosopher Marshall McLuhan argued that the interest in psychedelics at the time had to do with developing “empathy with the invading electronic environment.” Today’s “psychedelic renaissance” is led by experimentation in the therapeutic effects of mind-altering drugs. On February 22, 2021, film Faculty member, Patricia Pisters, explained during an online session of SPUI25 how this renaissance” also tells us something about a new understanding of our complex digital living environment that is increasingly permeated by artificial intelligence and media machinations.
Exhibition, book and symposium on eco noir
On December 9, 2020, the University of the Arts Helsinki will host an online book launch and symposium that together mark the closure of the exhibition ‘Cooking for the Apocalypse’. The book accompanying the exhibition, entitled Eco Noir: A Companion for Precarious Times, provides an textual and visual collaborative exploration of interspecies relations in time of crisis, featuring the original artworks and writings of 34 prominent artists and researchers. The symposium, entitled ‘Eco Noir: A Dark Day for a Brighter Future’, focuses on how we can create a deeper connection based on equality with other species, having a wider understanding of our potential role in the betterment of the environment we live in, and thus gaining a better understanding and connection with each other. One of the keynote speakers is our Film Faculty member, Amir Vudka.
Be Pretty and Shut Up!
French actress Delphine Seyrig played the impressive lead role in Jeanne Dielman, the film with which Chantal Akerman gained prominence. The director, who passed away in 2015, would have turned 70 today. In honor of Akerman, Patricia Pisters, Professor of Film Studies at the UvA, highlights the life and work of Seyrig, who as an activist came to the fore in the 1970s with feminist videos.
AMIA: A History of British Animation
The Association of Moving Image Archivists’ University of Amsterdam student chapter presents ‘A History of British Animation’ on Thursday June 6 at 7.30pm at film theatre Kriterion in Amsterdam. A diverse collection of shorts from across the 20th century have been remastered by the BFI National Archive to give a portrait of one of Britain’s most idiosyncratic contributions to world cinema. This feature-length programme of shorts from 1907 to the 1990s, curated by the BFI’s Jez Stewart, traces the history of the art and the industry, offering an animated portrait of a nation, from turn-of-the-century trick films and anti-Nazi cartoon propaganda, to 1960s psychedelia and post-Thatcherite class satire. The 95-minute screening will be introduced by Animation Curator Jez Stewart of the BFI National Archive and followed by a Q&A.
ASCA Lecture ‘Radical Formalism and the Problem of Horror’
On Friday May 10th, from 3-6pm, Professor Eugenia Brinkema (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) will give a talk entitled “The Violence of Fascination: Martyrs, Torture and Form.” In her talk, which will take place at the Potgieterzaal in the University Library (UvA) in Amsterdam, Brinkema will focus on Pascal Laugier’s 2008 new-extremist horror film Martyrs, arguing that the film generates a formal violence that is coextensive with the very aesthetic fascinations that structure it, rendering an account of violence that is monstrative and creative, cinematically demonstrating not the violation of body but the impersonal, non-embodied violence of a fascination with formal possibility, one shared by horror and metaphysical philosophy. The workshop will explore issues of radical formalism, ethics, violence, and negative affect in film and critical theory. All are welcome. To receive workshop readings, please email Abe Geil at a.m.geil@uva.nl.
Media as ‘Pharmakon’: Mental Health in the Digital Age
Are digital media like narcotic drugs? Such comparisons have become increasingly common in the rampant discussion on smartphone and technology addiction. In his book ‘Plato’s Pharmacy’ (1968) philosopher Jacques Derrida discusses the ambiguity of the “pharmakon”, designating both poison and medicine, depending on context and individual differences. Can our contemporary media be seen as pharmaka for our mental health? For the 5th session of the “SAY AAHH!” series on Thursday April 18, 2019 in SPUI25, Amir Vudka, Patricia Pisters and Marlies Brouwer will discuss their ongoing work on this topic.
This is Film! Film Heritage in Practice
From March 6th to May 8th, Eye and the University of Amsterdam present This is Film! Film Heritage in Practice , a series of six public lectures at Eye devoted to remarkable projects in the field of film restoration and film heritage. Giovanna Fossati (Chief Curator at Eye and Professor of Film Heritage at the UvA) addresses recent restoration projects and presentation forms of film heritage, varying from silent cinema compilation programmes to Hollywood classics. Each session features an extended Q&A session with an invited (international) guest speaker, who will also introduce a film screening. This is Film! offers insight into what happens behind the scenes in film archives, museums and cinemas, and is aimed at everyone who loves film. The lectures are in English and can be attended as a series or on a one-off basis.
Click here for more information.
War and the Screen Machine: Film Lecture by Patricia Pisters
On May 9 at 7.15pm Faculty member Patricia Pisters will present an audiovisual ‘tour of duty’ through contemporary war films in Eye. She shows that war and cinema have a long and intertwined history. Soldiers carry cameras and other media devices with them, and the battlefield has exploded on multiple screens, causing our viewpoints to become fragmented. Pisters’ lecture will be illustrated with fragments from war films such as Redacted by Brian De Palma.
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Shell Shock: Opening Night
In the Shell Shock program, filmmakers, philosophers, writers and speakers bring you as close as possible to the experiences of people after a period of war and violence. On the opening night on March 22, director Morgan Knibbe, film professor Patricia Pisters and philosopher Hans Schnitzler will tell about the processing of war violence in film. There will also be a screening of Morgan Knibbes’ The Atomic Soldiers.
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Imperfections: Mistakes, Cracks, Noise Today
On March 12 from 6-11pm The Sublime Imperfections research collective devotes a round table and performance event to aesthetics & discourses of imperfection, mistakes, glitches and noise, repair and distortions. The event is part of a conference that address cravings for imperfection in design, music, art, writing, psychology, and genetics. The round table featuring, besides Mieke Bal, Graham Dunning, Linor Goralik, Ellen Rutten, Yuriko Saito, and DJ Trish Trash, our Faculty member Patricia Pisters.
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SISTERS! Proposal Extension & Keynote Announcement
The deadline for the call for proposals of the Eye International Conference ‘Sisters! Women and the Silent Screen’ has been extended to 7 December 10am (CET). The committee looks forward to receiving your proposals at conference@eyefilm.nl. In addition, the conference has announced the names of the keynote speakers: Jaqueline Stewart, Professor at the Department of Cinema and Media Studies of the University of Chicago, and Annette Förster, media historian and film curator who specializes in women in film history.