On Sunday January 22nd from 2.30-4pm the Joods Cultureel Kwartier (JHM) organizes a film afternoon on ‘The Jewish Identity. The main film of the afternoon is the ‘mockumentary’ Zelig (1983) by Woody Allen. This fictional documentary highlights the life and period of Leonard Zelig (played by Woody Allen), the ‘human chameleon’, whose overwhelming desire to conform is reflected in the ability to take on to the face and physical characteristics of whom he happens to meet. Film Studies alumni Amir Vodka will give a talk at the event.

Click here for more information.

On Wednesday 18 January 2017 at 4pm, EYE Filmmuseum presents the latest film by cultural theorist and critic Mieke Bal. Reasonable Doubt (2016) is an experiment to audio-visualise ‘thought’. Mixing docu-drama with theoretical fiction, the project stages scenes from the lives of philosopher René Descartes (1596-1650) and the Swedish Queen Kristina (1626-1689). The screening is introduced by Mieke Bal, and followed by a Q&A session led by Giovanna Fossati, chief curator at EYE and professor of Film Heritage at the University of Amsterdam.

For tickets, please visit eyefilm.nl.

We are proud to announce that we, the Film Studies Division of the Department of Media Studies of the University of Amsterdam, have become an official partner of DocuDoka, a bimonthly film and discusison night in Doka (Volkshotel Amsterdam) that explores the adverse effects of globalization. Every two months (usually the last Thursday of that month) an urgent issue in today’s global society will be discussed on the basis of a documentary and discussion with special guests and the audience. 

The first DocuDoka of 2017 will focus on the help and harm of volunteer tourism. On Friday January 27th, the film and discussion will start with the world premiere of Making a Difference (2017), a documentary on voluntourism made by Dutch film trio Brechtje Boeke, Kuba Szutkowski and Reinier Vriend. After the screening they will open a discussion on the ethics of voluntourism together with Krista Arriëns from Rambam, the satirical journalistic Dutch television program that recently aired a critical episode on voluntourism.

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As a central part of International Film Festival Rotterdam, IFFR Short Film is a unique showcase of artists’ moving image and experimental film for works under 60 minutes. Shown on a variety of formats from 3D to 35mm film, it is a celebration of all forms of film and video. The 2017 edition of IFFR Short Film presents 23 films in the Tiger Competition for Short Films, now in its 12th year. Three award winners will be selected by a jury of three, comprising Finnish artist Salla Tykkä, Andrea Lissoni, Senior Curator of International Art (Film) at Tate, and Patricia Pisters, Professor of Media Studies and Film team member at the University of Amsterdam.

Visit the IFFR Short Film website

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On Friday, December 2nd, DocuDoka will host the third edition of their bimonthly film and discussion series in creative night bar Doka, located in the basement of the Volkshotel in Amsterdam. The central question of the night will be: why is child sex tourism so difficult to prevent? This question will be addressed by screening two new documentaries on child sex tourism, SOS: Sold Out Slaves (2016) and Fallen Angels (2016), and having a discussion afterwards with Celine Verheijen of Defence for Children, Anneke Koning of the Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology, and the audience. The moderator will be Inge Hermann, Associate Professor Ethics & Tourism at Saxion University of Applied Sciences.  Film team member Emiel Martens is one of the organizers of the event.  

More info and RSVP: facebook.com/events/140398766432873/
Tickets: http://bit.ly/docudoka3

Continue reading New DocuDoka film and discussion night on child sex tourism →

On Saturday November 5, 2016, Marie-Aude Baronian, Director of the MA Film studies, will be a speaker at the symposium Meet in the Middle:  Stations of Migration and Memory Between Art and Film. In the context of a retrospective on the video installations of filmmaker Atom Egoyan (at the MacKenzie museum) and an Armenian film series (organized by the University of Regina, Canada) she will be talking about testimony and otherness in Egoyan’s work.

Visit the Meet in the Middle Project Website

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This year marks the 450th anniversary of the Beeldenstorm, the wave of iconoclasm that swept over the Low Countries in 1566. This defining moment in Netherlandish history will be commemorated with a two-day symposium ICONOCLASM: BEELDENSTORM AND BEYOND, which will consider the Beeldenstorm in relation to iconoclasm as a global phenomenon. The symposium will be held on 9 and 10 December 2016, in the auditorium of the Rijksmuseum and the aula of the University of Amsterdam. The program and registration are now online: rijksmuseum.nl/nl/iconoclasm.

Continue reading ICONOCLASM: BEELDENSTORM AND BEYOND →

The book launch of Thomas Elsaesser’s new book, Film History as Media Archaeology: Tracking Digital Cinema, will take place on Friday October 14th, 2016 from 13.00 till 16.30 hrs in EYE Filmmuseum, Amsterdam. You are able to reserve a seat by sending an RSVP-email to marketing@aup.nl before October 7th. The launch event is made possible with support of the Department of Media Studies.

More information on the launch
More information on the book

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On Friday September 23th, the fourth and last edition this summer of Pllek Going Places, co-organized by Film Team member Emiel Martens, will take place at Amsterdam city beach Pllek. Under the title Afrolijk, meaning ‘AfroJoy’, the night will provide a full South African program. It will start with the open air screening of the South African film Ayanda (2015), after which the DJs of Rituals, the new branche of Afrolosjes, will take over the night with an Afro dance party. A performance by South African dancer Elvis Sibeko, art by photographer Alice de Kruijs and food by Broodje Met will make this last edition of Going Places complete. Afrolijk also marks the official launch of Afrovibes, the annual festival of modern theatre, dance and music from Africa that will be held next month in Amsterdam, Utrecht, Den Haag and Rotterdam.

Click here for more info and RSVP. Click here for film tickets.

Continue reading Pllek Going Places | Afrolijk →

Filming for the Future: The Work of Louis Gasteren by Film Team member Patricia Pisters is nominated for the Louis Hartlooper Prize for Best Film Publication 2016. The annual Louis Hartlooper Prize for Best Film Publication will be presented during the Dutch Film Festival on Thursday, September 22nd. For the 12th time, the award will be awarded to a person with one or more publications in the past year that has made a stimulating contribution to thinking about Dutch film culture.

Patricia Pisters’ Filming for the Future: The Work of Louis Gasteren (Amsterdam University Press, 2015) presents an analytical tribute to this versatile artist. The book includes three DVDs, which enables the reader to ‘visually check’ the theoretical explanation given in the book.

For more information about the prize and the nominees (in Dutch), please visit: www.louishartlooperprijs.nl.

The Vlaamse Dienst voor Filmcultuur is again organizing their Summer Film School in Antwerp. The program contains 7 days with over 15 lectures and 20 films, organized in two thematic series: the work of Chantal Akerman and the use of the ‘song’ throughout film history.

Participants pay €135 for the whole event or €75 for one of the two series. Students pay a discount price of €70 or €40. You can register until July 6 via info@vdfc.be. More info: www.vdfc.be.

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On Tuesday July 12 from 4-5.30pm, Devin Orgeron (North Carolina State University) and Melissa Dollman (AV archivist/PhD student University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) will host a special lecture and discussion at the EYE Collection Centre (Asterweg) by on the idea of regional archiving and regional film collecting. With an eye toward uncovering North Carolina’s hidden film and media history, they hope to encourage audience members to think more carefully about their own region and the complex nexus of media at the heart of every locality.

Continue reading Acting Locally: Regional Media and the Pedagogical Mission →

From June 16-17, 2016, the Netherlands Association for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (NALACS), where Film Faculty member Emiel Martens is board member, in cooperation with the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment of the Delft University of Technology, will host the international conference Cities and Citizenship in Contemporary Latin America and the Caribbean in Delft, the Netherlands. The conference, with keynotes by Clara Irazábal (Professor of Urban Planning at Columbia University) and Rivke Jaffe (Professor of Cities, Politics and Culture at the University of Amsterdam) and more than 50 presentations by academic researchers, will be of interest for everyone interested in Latin American and Caribbean Studies and issues surrounding cities and citizenship more generally.

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On Friday, June 17th, Volkshotel launches its own engaging film and discussion night in Doka, located in the basement of the Volkskrant building. Under the title DocuDoka every two months an urgent issue in today’s global society will be discussed on the basis of a documentary and discussion with special guests. The first film that will be shown is Gringo Trails, a thought-provoking documentary about the traces that backpackers leave during their travels.

Docu Doka, an initiative of Volkshotel created by Film studies Faculty member Emiel Martens and produced in collaboration with Gasten in je Gezicht and Caribbean Creativity, will consist of a variety of film series that explores the adverse effects of globalization. The first series focuses on the impact of tourism. What are the effects of modern tourism on people and the environment?

Continue reading Launch DocuDoka with the Dutch premiere of Gringo Trails →

An evening of films about Rotterdam and its urban development. A cinematic journey that starts during the interwar period and ends in the present with titles like ‘De stad die nooit rust’ (Von Barsy, 1928), ‘Houen zo’ (Van der Horst, 1952), ‘Stad zonder hart’ (Schaper, 1966), ‘‘t Is gewoon niet mooi meer’ (Rijneke & de Ridder, 1976), ‘Images of a Moving City (Doing, 2001), ‘2KM2’ (Van Hees, 2008), and many more.

Guests are Winy Maas (architect), Floris Paalman (author of Cinematic Rotterdam and Film Faculty member), Kees Weeda (former head Art Department of the Municipality of Rotterdam), and Arthur Bueno (film editor).

KRITERION | Wednesday, June 8th | start 19.30 – for free!

Rotterdam Classics is part of five days of movies in Kriterion, a program that celebrates the city of Rotterdam!

For more information, click here.

On Friday, June 24th, Welcome to the Smiling Coast, the documentary produced by Film Faculty member Emiel Martens, will have its Dutch pre-premiere on the first edition of Going Places at Pllek in Amsterdam. After the world premiere at the Pan African Film Festival in Los Angeles and the European premiere at the Galway African Film Festival, the film will now be screened in the Netherlands for the first time.

For more information and tickets, click here. For the event on Facebook, click here.

The official Dutch premiere of Welcome to the Smiling Coast will take place at World Cinema Amsterdam on Saturday August 27th.

Face Down in Noir: The Body in the Pool
Tuesday, May 31, 2016 / 17-19 hrs

Public lecture by Dick Hebdige, Professor of Film & Media Studies and Art Studio at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

The body in the swimming pool as metonym for trouble in paradise is a recurrent motif bordering on cliché in Hollywood/West Coast sunshine noir. In this talk, Professor Dick Hebdige tracks the passage of the corpse floating face down in the pool across the American imaginary from Southern Gothic to Sunset Boulevard, from the LA Times news archive to contemporary U.S. TV series like Weeds and Breaking Bad. Accompanied by multiple slides, film and video clips, Hebdige tries to answer the overarching question that binds it all together: whatever happened to the American Dream?

Continue reading Face Down in Noir: The Body in the Pool →

Always wanted to write for de Filmkrant? Then submit to our Summer School Film Criticism which will be completely devoted this year to American filmmaker Steven Spielberg (with reservation).

This summer Amsterdam EYE Film Museum organizes a large retrospective on the work of Steven Spielberg. On this occasion, the Summer School Film Criticism, organised by de Filmkrant in collaboration with EYE for the fourth time  a row now, will focus on Spielberg’s films and his legacy and influence on young contemporary filmmakers. Together the participants will create a special contribution that will appear in the summer issue of de Filmkrant.

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On Wednesday May 18th, EYE, the Dutch Film Academy and the University of Amsterdam (Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis / Media Studies) organize a seminar on the films by Nouchka van Brakel on the theme ‘a female point of view.’ The seminar will feature, among others, former NOS journalist Margriet Brandsma and Film team member Patricia Pisters who will talk with Nouchka van Brakel about her films and inspirations.

For more information, check the event on the EYE website here or watch and/or download the full program here (both in Dutch).