Lecture series: past events

Once every three weeks on Wednesday night the Master’s department of the Film Academy invites guests to come and give a lecture. Speakers can be film makers, visual artists, composers but also philosophers, scientists or film theoreticians. The aim is simple: to broaden our horizon and to get inspired by a diversity of approaches and perspectives. The lectures are free and open to all who are interested. 

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10 December 2014

Lessons in Realism: Episode of the Sea | Lonnie van Brummelen and Siebren de Haan

In this lecture, Lonnie van Brummelen and Siebren de Haan will show and discuss their latest work, 'Episode of the Sea'. In this film, premiered at the Toronto festival and screened at IDFA, Van Brummelen and De Haan profile the small, unique town of Urk that was once an island in the Zuiderzee in Holland, while simultaneously investigating the parallels between the practices of fishing and of filmmaking. The result has been described as a "playful documentary", a "rich viewing experience", a "flat-out masterpiece".

About
Lonnie van Brummelen and Siebren de Haan work together since 2002, producing film installations, writing, sculpture and collages that explore cultural and geopolitical landscapes such as Europe’s borders (Grossraum, 2005), sites of resource production and global trade (Monument of Sugar – how to use artistic means to elude trade barriers, 2007; Episode of the Sea, 2014), and the (non) sites of cultural heritage (Monument to Another Man's Fatherland, 2008, View from the Acropolis, 2012 and subi dura a rudibus, 2010). Most of their projects involve extensive research and long term collaborations. As part of their artistic practice, they express formal and informal research trajectories and the contingency of fieldwork in textual supplements. They do their own camera work, sound recording, production, montage, sculpting, and graphical design.

For more information about the lecturers, their work and their writings, see:
www.vanbrummelendehaan.nl
Drifting Studio Practice - From molding sugar to the unknown depths of the sea

Reviews of Episode of the Sea (TIFF)
Way Too Indie
The Hollywood Reporter

26 November 2014

Ethics of Appropriation: Found Footage between Archive and Internet | Thomas Elsaesser

The lecture examines different kinds of cinematic appropriation, i.e. the use of footage taken from other works, contexts, notably ‘found footage’ from archives, but also compilations of scenes and fragments from well-known films, in the spirit of homage, pastiche or parody.

As a practice that has migrated from avantgarde art (Duchamp, Braque) and filmmakers from the 1950s to 1980s (Bruce Connor, Peter Tscherkassky, Martin Arnold) to the gallery art spaces (Matthias Müller, Christian Marclay) and the Internet, cinematic appropriation also poses questions of ethics: who “owns” the (meaning and uses of such) material? Are authorship and copyright still viable concepts in the age of “free” access and over-abundance? How can archives benefit from the filmmakers’ renewed interest in their “orphans” or “bits and pieces”? Other questions are aesthetic: Which principles of montage, narration and edit(orializ)ing best permit a re-assessment of the starting material? Should re-enactments supplement the missing archive material, or are the gaps, faults and blemishes the very source of “authenticity”?

Finally, given that appropriation, in the form of mash-ups, supercuts and clips, is an increasingly popular way of posting one’s cinephile credentials, are such video-essays reflecting critically on the cinema through the cinema itself, or are the appropriators in turn appropriated by providing free publicity for the studio product and energizing just another cycle of consumption?

Thomas Elsaesser is Emeritus Professor at the University of Amsterdam, and Permanent Visiting Professor at Columbia University.

12 November 2014

The Art of Forgetting | Riemer Knoop

Our age's dominant cultural mode is one in which anything valuable has to be captured, remembered, collected, documented, safeguarded and protected - from oblivion, from time's passage, form death and decay. Indeed, by the very fact of preserving, things become valuable. Yet forgetting can be as productive as remembering. Delving into psychoanalysis (Oliver Sacks), sociology (Paul Connerton) and museology (Michel Foucault), I shall try and illustrate how and why forgetting can be useful, indeed often is a condition for getting ahead. Today's memory institutions' plight, with much of their collections not and perhaps to be on show, will be put in a new light.

Dr. Riemer Knoop is a classicist and archaeologist. He studied in Amsterdam and Rome, was graphic designer and worked as a producer with VARA television. He was responsible of national public affairs for Dutch archaeology, and manager at Rijksmuseum van Oudheden. Since 1998 Knoop is a self-employed consultant with Gordion Cultureel Advies, specializing in policy issues of museums, libraries and archives (www.gordion.nl). He became part-time professor ('lector') of Cultural Heritage at the Reinwardt Academy in 2011.

29 October 2014

BERNARD, a film to prove all sceptics wrong | Hidde Simons, Joggem Simons and Thomas Wander

Everybody thought they were fools, that it couldn't be done, that it wasn't cinema. For Polanski the limit was two actors in a theatre. "This is where I stop", Polanski said in an interview about 'Venus in Fur'. "I'm not going to try a film about one person in a closed space." But the team behind 'Bernard' proved Polanski and all the others wrong: it could be done and they did it. The result 'Bernard': a 70 minute monologue on film!

The lecture will consist of the screening of this exceptional film and an extended Q&A afterwards with the director, producer and actor of the film.

About
'Bernard' has been produced and directed by Hidde Simons - who's also an acting coach - and his brother Joggem - who works mainly as a producer (for among others Hal Hartley, Michel van der Aa and Louis Andriessen). Thomas Wander, the lead actor in the film, works mainly in theatre, combining classical roles with experimental theatre. He has performed Bernard's monologue in the theatre for many years.

www.bernardfilm.com
www.facebook.com/bernardfilm

15 October 2014

Making sense, three times over | Urszula Antoniak

Directing as making sense in three stages: writing, filming and editing illustrated by fragments of screenplays and films of Urszula, including her last, yet unfinished film.

About
Urszula Antoniak is a Polish-Dutch film director. She graduated from the Katowice Film School and the Netherlands Film Academy. Her debut 'Nothing Personal' (2009) won the Leopard Award for Best Feature Film in Locarno and four Golden Calves at the Nederlands Filmfestival. Her second feature 'Code Blue' (2011) was in the Quinzaine des Realisateurs selection at the Cannes Film Festival.

Read more: IMDb

1 October 2014

ABOVE US ALL – the meaning of the moment | Eugenie Jansen, Albert Elings and Michel Schöpping

The human being is a story telling animal. On the one hand we tell stories to comfort ourselves when we have to deal with traumatic experiences. On the other we try to make a story out of our life to give it meaning. ABOVE US ALL is a fiction film about the stories we tell to deal with loss. Personal loss, but also collective traumatic events like wars. The film was shot in Australia and in Belgium with a non-professional cast and it investigates a different form of narration. 
The spectator is placed in the centre of the perspective; the camera is turning around in circles of 360 degrees and the film was shot in 3D. Time and space are not manipulated. The film aims to be “in the very moment”. In the moment that the story doesn’t yet exist. The story is what we make of it, later on. And afterwards, we delete all the ingredients that don’t contribute to that (specific) story. ABOVE US ALL gives the spectator the experience of 53 moments in time in which we encounter our main characters; their tribulations, believes and thoughts, without the filter of the story.

Read more about the film:
ABOVE US ALL website

This lecture will consist of three parts:
Albert Elings
(coach) will focus on the different possible perspectives one can take when seeing this project as a research vehicle, both from a contextual point of view and from the point of view of the content.
Eugenie Jansen
(director) will explain the practical consequences of the starting points during the process of the filmmaking. For example: how to combine a conceptual and rigid form with the wish to allow (documentary) coincidence to play an important role, while also using the strength of the non-professional actors?
Michel Schöpping(sound design) will share his experiences on how the 3D space of sound relates to the 3D space of image. What possibilities does the rotating camera create that can be used by sound design? What kind of choices can be made and what is the difference in the kind of impact?

Please note: we will NOT be screening the film!

Screenings:

ABOVE US ALL premiered at the Berlin Film Festival 2014 and can now be seen in the Dutch theatres (in Amsterdam: EYE and Cinema LAB111).
An English subtitled version of ABOVE US ALL will be screening at EYE on Sunday 28 September at 21:15 and at the Netherlands Film Festival in Utrecht on Monday 29 September at 21:00.
From 25/9 - 1/10, AHK students going to ABOVE US ALL will get 2 tickets for the price of 1 at EYE and Cinema LAB111.

About
Albert Elings and Eugenie Jansen graduated at the Dutch Film Academy in 1991, and worked together on documentary projects such as 'Foreland' (2005), 'The Royal Wedding Tapes' (2002) and 'Bitter Harvest' (2010), and two fiction projects: 'Tussenland' (2002; Tiger Award IFFR 2002) and 'Calimucho' (2008).
Michel Schöpping is a widely acclaimed sound designer, who has worked on international film productions like 'The Broken Circle Breakdown' (2013), 'KID' (2013), 'Altiplano' (2009) en 'Vivan las Antipodas' (2011).

28 May 2014

On truth and fiction in documentary cinema | Jos de Putter

Jos de Putter will focus on narrative, cinematic and philosophical questions that deal with the concept of ‘truth’ in documentary cinema.
Documentary has always manoeuvred between ‘journalism’ and ‘storytelling’, or topic-driven versus auteur-driven. Both traditions make a particular claim to what is called ‘truth’. However, distinctions are not always transparent; thus, ‘storytelling’ is often confused with ‘manipulating’, while the reality claims of direct cinema have their own shortcomings. This leads to the question if we can ‘lie the truth’.

Jos de Putter will focus on this question from different angles. For a practical discussion he will show fragments from his own work and that of other filmmakers, which exemplify the dilemma.
For a more theoretical approach he will include a survey of the theory of sign and meaning as understood in the tradition of Prague Structuralism, notably the work of Jan Mukarovsky.

Jos de Putter (1959) studied political science and literature at the Rijksuniversiteit Leiden, and as a post-graduate modern philosophy at the Freie Universität Berlin. He worked several years as a film critic before he made his first documentary in 1993, ‘It’s been a lovely’, which was very successful. Since then he has made several other prize winning documentaries, made installations and shorts (shown at MOMA, New York), and worked as editor-in-chief for VPRO Tegenlicht. His new film 'SEE NO EVIL' (2014) is a portrait of three elderly famous chimpanzees, who ‘look back upon their lives’.

More information:
HollandDoc

14 May 2014

The past tells – telling the past | Willem Capteyn

Reflections of a screenwriter on the omnipresence of the past in film and the many different ways the past can be told.

From formal flash back structures to details of images and sound design; from general preconditions in the mind of the spectator to the complex mental activities that drama can prompt in the viewer and the key role memory plays in this process.

About
Born in Wierden (the Netherlands) in 1944, Willem Capteyn completed his studies as a violinist at the Amsterdam Conservatorium in the late nineteen sixties. In the seventies and eighties he wrote many radio plays, television plays and television series, often together with co-authors.

Award winning productions to which he contributed include the twelve-part television series 'Zwarte Sneeuw' (‘Black Snow’), which in 1997 received the Gouden Beeld (Golden Image) for the best drama series in the previous season. In 2002 the eight-part series 'De Negen Dagen van de Gier' (‘The Nine Days of the Vulture’) was awarded a Gouden Kalf (Golden Calf) for the best television drama of 2002.

In 1989 Capteyn joined the Netherlands Film Academy where, from 1995 to 2003 he was head of the screenwriting department and, from 2008 to 2009, was its Director.

He is currently working on the scripts for three feature film projects.

30 April 2014

TACTILE CINEMA: hands on exploration of analogue film | WORM.filmwerkplaats

The artists from WORM.filmwerkplaats will present their 16mm works and will
discuss film's physicality, its strengths as a statement and as a material for artistic expression.
Analogue film lab culture from around the world.


PROGRAMME

Screenings part  1
'Apophenia' - Yoana Buzova, 16mm, b&w, digital sound, 3.5 min, 2014
'Utrecht 3&4' - Daan de Bakker, 16mm, colour, silent, 5 min, 2010
'Rode Molen' - Esther Urlus, 16mm, colour, sound, 5 min, 2013
'Konrad & Kurfurst' - Esther Urlus, 16mm, colour, sound, 7 min, 2013/14

discussion

Screenings part 2
'Ai Mi!' - Klara Ravat, 16mm, colour, silent, 1.5 min, 2012   
'Dust Poetry' - Nan Wang, 16mm, colour/b&w, sound, 9 min, 2013 
'Monologue Exterior' - Francien van Everdingen, 16mm, colour, silent, 2.5 min, 2003
'NYC' - Jutu van der Made, 16mm, b&w, silent, 1.5min, 2012

discussion

Screenings part 3
'Interlude' - Joost van Veen, 16mm, b&w, sound, 2.5 min, 2004
'Flow' – Lichun Tseng, 16mm, b&w, sound, 17 min, 2013

discussion


About
Filmwerkplaats is an artist run workspace dedicated to motion picture film as an artistic, expressive medium. It's geared towards filmmakers, artists and art school students interested in film not purely as a storage medium for their ideas, visuals and soundtrack, but as a material that actively shapes and distorts these thoughts, images and sounds.

http://filmwerkplaats.hotglue.me

16 April 2014

The making of 'One Hand Clapping', found choreography installation and film | Peter Delpeut & Menno Otten

'One Hand Clapping' is a five screen video installation as well as a short dance film in which the hands of five chief conductors of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra perform a dazzling dance. The hands are taken from concert registrations, mostly 400% to 500% enlargements of the original footage. The five screens, as well as the frame enlargements confronted Peter Delpeut and Menno Otten (editing) with huge artistic and technical challenges.
In their lecture Delpeut and Otten will give insights in both processes, focussing on the difference between installation (being monumental and silent) and film (forcing a narrative structure and having a sound track). 
'One Hand Clapping' is a so called found choreography: found footage made into dance. Delpeut wrote a blog on found choreography for dance film festival Cinedans, with many examples of and ideas on this new genre of dance film.

Peter Delpeut (1956) is a filmmaker and writer. From 1988 tot 1995 he was programmer and deputy director of the Netherlands Filmmuseum (now EYE). He makes films in many genres: found footage ('Lyrical Nitrate'; 'Diva dolorosa'), documentaries ('In Loving Memory'; 'Immer Fernweh') and features ('The Forbidden Quest'; 'Felice…Felice…').
He writes novels ('Het vergeten seizoen'; 'Kruisverhoor') and traveling essays ('De grote bocht'; 'In de woestijn fiets je niet'). His essays on film and other arts are published in several magazines. They were compiled in 'Pleidooi voor het treuzelen'.
In 1993 he shot the short dance film 'E pur si muove', in collaboration with choreographers duo LeineRoebana. In 2012 the three of them also produced a dance video installation for De Lakenhal in Leiden. In collaboration with Menno Otten, Delpeut wants to develop new found footage installations. Their first official duo presentation 'Sisyphus' can be seen at the EYE Film Institute from 12 March 2014.

Menno Otten (1984) made the award-winning documentaries 'Nightwatcher' and 'Time within Time', while being a student at the Netherlands Film Academy. Recently he premiered his new documentary 'Via Dolorosa' at the IDFA 2013. Currently he’s developing a new documentary for the VPRO.
After graduating from film school Otten worked on several multi screen installations, most recently for an exposition of The National Film and Sound Archive. Otten’s installations focus mainly on re-using and experimenting with found footage.
In 2013 Otten founded his studio InnerVisions, focusing on experimental installations and art-projects. InnerVisions produced a series of “Living Paintings”, shedding “new light” on old Dutch masters and bringing them to life in a way that has never been seen before. The first one will be released early 2014.

http://foundchoreography.blogspot.nl/
www.mennootten.nl

2 April 2014

FACELESS | Bogomir Doringer

Bogomir Doringer will be speaking about his recent exhibition FACELESS. Long research on FACELESS formed itself in a two-part exhibition exploring a phenomenon present all around us: the fashion of facelessness that first appeared in the creative arts at the beginning of this century and has remained popular ever since. The exhibition reminds us of the impact that media-generated images can have on the creative arts and the ways in which they respond to public images, pop culture, and the mainstream in general. In today’s socio-political frame in which there is a lot of discussion on the issue of privacy, this exhibition has a special importance and alarming tone.
In the Museums Quartier in Vienna more then 26,000 people visited the exhibition, confirming the importance of this phenomena. In January this year it has been brought to Amsterdam and installed at the Mediamatic Fabriek. It gathers more then 90 contemporary artists including names such as Marina Abramovic, Jill Magid, Maison Martin Margiela, Raf Simons, Jeremy Bailey, Andrew Norman Wilson and many more.

Mediamatic StalkFest
From 1-3 April, Mediamatic is organising a series of events around the FACELESS exhibition: StalkFest. You can join workshops and lectures on hacking, privacy and superhero surveillance. Workshops during the day, food and lectures in the evening.
Bogomir Doringer’s lecture will be one of three lectures on this evening, titled "Patents and face detection”. There will also be lectures by Jeremy Bailey and Zach Blas. The first lecture will start at 20:00 hrs.

About
Bogomir Doringer is a visual artist, originally coming from Yugoslavia, these days known as Serbia. After finishing his studies at the Rietveld Academy, he graduated from the Master of Film with cum laude in 2011. Doringer has been nominated twice for the Venice Biennale, with the project that he has been developing during his studies at our academy, entitled ‘Hospitality’.

With regards to the exhibition, Doringer says in his statement:
"Following the events of 9/11, images of masked faces of terrorists became dominant in the media; repeated as a ghostly, unknown presence that reminds us of the unsafe time we live in. At the same time, throughout Europe people began to pursue a ban on burqas. Events like the murders of Pim Fortuyn and Theo van Gogh in the Netherlands led to public discussions on the impact of Muslim culture through Muslim minorities on so-called "western values". In addition to the loss of privacy, the rules of modern technology demand that we be constantly visible. Social networks, initially developed as platforms for communication, came to define standards of everyday activity and lifestyle. They approach us with the promise of serving as tools for self-promotion, and then increasingly invade our privacy with our express consent.
The unstable identity of the present begs for the return of power of the mask from ancient times, when it was used as a form of protection, disguise, performance, or just plain entertainment.“

Mediamatic
www.facelessexhibition.net
www.bogomirdoringer.info

To give the visitors of the lecture a chance to see the exhibition, the lecture takes place NOT at the Film Academy, but at Mediamatic.

Address:
Mediamatic, Van Gendthallen (next to Roest)
, VOC-kade 10, Oostenburg, Amsterdam. How to get there

Admission:
Students: free
The first 40 reservations: 5 euro
Normal admission: 10 euro

19 March 2014

Drama in a time-less world | Dick Tuinder

There's no art if there's no understanding of time. But time is becoming increasingly scarce in our globalized world.
In 'Farewell to the Moon', Dick Tuinder's recent feature film that premiered in the Tiger Competition at the International Film Festival Rotterdam earlier this year, time is the main ingredient. Time as subject matter and time as story telling device.

About
After graduating from the Rietveld Academy in 1988, Dick Tuinder (1963) has manifested himself in a wide range of media and art-forms.
In the pre-internet years he founded PARKTV with a group of friends, broadcasting and distributing daily 'pure television art' on cable
networks in Amsterdam, New York and Berlin. In 1993 he made a first short film 'Goud' which won the Grolsch Prijs.
It marked the starting point of a steady flow of short films. In 2009 this resulted in his first feature 'Winterland'. In 2013 he completed his
second feature: 'Farewell to the Moon'.
Known for his graphic art, illustrations and several large mural paintings, Dick Tuinder also wrote and directed two stage-plays, several radio-plays
and television documentaries. Next to writing numerous articles on art and literature, he published a collection of letters on beauty 'Nostalgia for the Primal Soup' and a book of drawings and comics 'Facing Reality'.
He is currently, amongst other things, working on an illustrated novel about a russian rodent: "The World as Urge and Desillusion".

Prior to Tuinder's lecture-performance, we will show 'Farewell to the Moon'; at 18.00h in the Cinema of the Film Academy. The lecture itself will start at 20.00h.

More information:
Facebook.com/dick.tuinder 
Farewell to the Moon

5 March 2014

Voice – Script – Public | Wendelien van Oldenborgh

Wendelien van Oldenborgh develops works, using the cinematic format as a methodology for production and as the basic language for various forms of presentation. Van Oldenborgh often uses the format of a public film shoot – in which she collaborates with participants in different scenarios – to co-produce a script and orient the work towards its final outcome. In her lecture, and on the basis of her recent works, Wendelien van Oldenborgh will discuss her method of producing as well as look into some of the questions that the various works raise in terms of the relation between the cinematic, the theatrical and reality.

Wendelien van Oldenborgh is an artist based in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. She received her art education at Goldmiths' College, London, during the eighties and lives in the Netherlands again since 2004.
'La Javanaise' (2012) was shown at the Berlinale Forum Expanded 2013, 'Bete & Deise' (2012) premiered at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, 'Supposing I love you. And you also love me' (2011) was first shown in the Danish Pavilion of the Venice Biennial 2011, 'Pertinho de Alphaville' (2010) at the 29th São Paulo Biennial 2010.
Van Oldenborgh has exhibited widely; recently at Tate Liverpool 2012, RAW material Company, Dakar, Senegal, Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova, Ljublijana, but also at the Generali Foundation, Vienna, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Museum Sztuki Lodz, Van Abbemusem Eindhoven, Muhka Antwerp. She has also participated in the 4rth Moscow Biennial 2011, the 11th Istanbul Biennial 2009, the Oberhausen Short Film Festival, Images festival Toronto 2010 where she received the Marian McMahon Award and participated in the 2013 Flaherty Film Seminar: 'History is what is happening' in New York. She was awarded the Hendrik Chabot Prize 2011 by the Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds, the Netherlands.

10 December 2013

Three Farewells | Janis Rafailido

Janis Rafailidou will use this occasion to screen her most recent film-trilogy project, 'Three Farewells' (2013). It’s a work consisting of three separate visual narratives all concentrating on the notion of ‘loss’ and ‘death’ outside an anthropocentric understanding. An analysis on the work will be followed by an examination of the possibilities of narration within a visual art’s use of moving images and the importance of artistic research. Rafailidou’s project was developed during her residency at the Rijksakademie with the support of AFK funds.

Janis Rafailidou (1984, Greece) lives between Athens and Amsterdam. Her practice focuses on video art, video installation and narration through the moving image. Rafailidou completed her Doctoral in Fine Art at the University of Leeds (2011) and has participated in international exhibitions, such as Manifesta 8 and Thessaloniki Biennial (2009). She has presented work at Tate Modern, Centre Pompidou and Reina Sofia National Museum (2010). She is currently an art resident at the Rijksakademie voor beeldende kunsten with a scholarship by Onassis Foundation.

www.janisrafailidou.co.uk
http://www.rijksakademie.nl/NL/resident/janis-rafailidou
Cinematography by Thodoros Mihopoulos GSC

26 November 2013

The Future is Now | Patricia Pisters

The sub heading of Patricia Pisters’ lecture is ‘Temporality of the Neuro-Image of Cinema in the Digital Age’. Starting from the position of the French (film) philosopher Jacques Rancière that the end of images is behind us, she will suggest that after the ‘movement-image’ and the ‘time-image’ – terms developed by another great film philosopher, Gilles Deleuze – we are now surrounded by a third kind of image, one that ‘speaks from the future’.

Patricia Pisters is professor of media culture and film studies and chair of the department of Media studies of the University of Amsterdam. She has published numerous articles and books on issues at the cross roads of film and philosophy, particularly in relation to contemporary screen culture. She’s a specialist on the works of Gilles Deleuze.

www.patriciapisters.com

‘Enjoy Poverty’ and beyond | Renzo Martens

First Renzo Martens made Episode I, in which he travels to war zones in Chechnya, taking on the role of the television viewer, the single most important actor in any contemporary war. Then he made Episode III, Enjoy Poverty, which took him to the Congo, aiming to teach the poor how to benefit from their biggest resource: poverty.. In both films Renzo Martens investigates the mechanisms of complicity of the documentary maker with the situations they’re trying to portray. Martens is now taking his quest one step further – reason to invite him for an extended interview.

There will be an extra screening of ‘Enjoy Poverty’ at 17:30 in the Film Academy cinema.

Renzo Martens (1973) studied at the Rietveld Academy. His work has been shown at many of the major venues and festivals and has been the subject of many publications and debates. Presently Martens is doing a PhD in Ghent.

www.rmma.nl

Noli me tangere (touch me not) | Ibrahim Quraishi

Ibrahim Quraishi will discuss the normativity of how movement and physicality are highlighted through the camera lens. How does the camera look at bodies – what does it see or not see? What’s the role of time in this? And how can the process of making a film be incorporated in the film itself?

Ibrahim Quraishi (1973) is an artist who works with different mediums like photography, photo painting, video, film, installation, performance, dance and theatre. His approach is that of a traveller, moving into the unknown. One of his latest works is ‘Wild Life Take Away Station’, a 24 – 72 hour live performance, edited immediately after the performance. Quraishi studied philosophy, worked with Edward Said, has done numerous research residencies and teaches all over the world, including at the Fine Arts Department at the Rietveld Academy. Presently he teaches at the SNDO-department of the Theatre School of the AHK.

www.ibrahimquraishi.org

Percussive ambience | Dan Geesin

Using ‘Kan door huid heen’ by Esther Rots (2009), for which film he made the sound design / music, Dan Geesin will guide us through his ongoing research into the relation between image, sound and meaning. How does sound relate to the body or the tactile senses; is there a real distinction between sound and music; what’s the role of the subjectivity of the person who records the sound, et cetera – all these questions, and more, will be dealt with from the perspective of Geesin’s own (sound) work.

Dan Geesin is a visual artist and musician. He studied in England, continued at the Ateliers in Amsterdam and slowly moved from visual arts to film. His short film ‘Olifantenvoeten’ won a Golden Calf for best short film at the Netherlands Film Festival in 2011. His sound design for ‘Kan door huid heen’ was nominated for a Golden Calf.

www.geesin.nl

26 March 2013

Illusion 24 times a second | Nenad Fiser

Nenad Fiser will examine the phenomenon of human vision, focusing on film art and its reception. The lecture will explore the implications of the facts of human vision – for example the relation between the center of vision and the center of attention, phenomena of color perception and the way the human mind constructs rather than ‘reads’ visual information. The problems discussed in the lecture open up a number of philosophical questions.

Nenad Fiser studied and taught philosophy at the Faculty of Philosophy in Sarajevo, before the war forced him to flee to the Netherlands, where he taught philosophy as well before being employed at the International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague as researcher and analyst, studying the role and workings of propaganda. He lectures regularly on a wide variety of philosophical issues.

"Nonsense is all that interests me" | André Schreuders

"Nonsense is all that interests me" is one of the key notes of the diaries of the Russian writer Daniil Kharms (1905-1942). After reading his short absurd stories and his diaries 20 years ago, philosopher and filmmaker André Schreuders fell in love with Daniil Kharms. He decided to study Russian to be able to translate the philosophical texts of Kharms. He went to Saint Petersburg to work in the archives, but got lost for 5 years in the Saint Petersburg court yards - finding Kharms admirers everywhere in the city and his spirit all around. Kharms inspired Schreuders to make 2 short films, write a few articles, write a script for a feature film and a manuscript about Kharms' metaphysical aesthetics. Kharms infected him with the avant-garde ideal to change people’s perception by art.

In his lecture, André Schreuders will speak about the miraculous adventures Kharms lead him into and about the texts and aesthetical metaphysics of Kharms. Schreuders will also show the 2 short films he made that were inspired by Kharms: 'On phenomena & existences No.3' and 'Manifesto for a free Fall'.

André Schreuders (1967) is a filmmaker, philosopher and consultant in urban planning. Since 2001 he developed his personal film language as a director, scriptwriter, cameraman and editor of poetic and philosophical documentary and fiction films. His work is mainly screened at international film festivals like, Cannes – Quinzaine des Realisateurs -, ISFF Hamburg, IFF Rotterdam, and sometimes in galleries and museums, among which Russian State Museum in Saint Petersburg.

http://www.patriciapisters.com/andre-schreuders.blogspot.nl

18 June 2013

'Sunken Garden': combining opera and 3D-film | Michel van der Aa

'Sunken Garden', Michel van der Aa's latest opera, polarised opinion when it was first performed in London in March. There were those who loved it ("A Gesammtkunstwerk for the age of Technology"), there were those who hated it ("Interminably long and boring"). In the opera, Van der Aa introduces a (wannabe) filmmaker who's making a film about a missing person but finds himself entering the same dream as the person he's looking for. 'Sunken Garden', like Van der Aa's earlier work 'After Life' (based on the film script by Kore-Eda Hirokazu), employs a distinctive combination of live action and video projections to tell its story, but this time he includes 3D film. 'Sunken Garden' was performed earlier this month during the Holland Festival.
 
Tracing his development, Van der Aa will discuss his views on the combination of opera and film. As part of the lecture, Van der Aa will show the making of of Sunken Garden - 'Sunken Garden - het maken van een moderne opera' - made by Lucas van Woerkum and master student Ruben van Leer.

Michel van der Aa (1970) is a truly multidisciplinary figure in contemporary music, combining composition with film and stage direction, and script writing. Among his earlier works are 'One' (2002), 'The Book of Disquiet' (2008) and the acclaimed opera 'After Life' (2005–2006). He recently received the Mauricio Kagel Music Prize.

www.vanderaa.net

Different Times, different scripts. Or: how can we write cinema? | Franz Rodenkirchen

If we accept Robert Bresson's observation that some films use the camera to reproduce, but others use the camera to create, can we then agree that all films shall be written in the same way, with the same tools? How to introduce the aspect of experienced time, of duration, so that a reading experience can mirror the intended viewing experience? The paradigms of scriptwriting have to be questioned to serve and reflect the more unconventional formats filmmakers try to explore.

Franz Rodenkirchen (1963) is a well-known script consultant, working among others for the Binger Filmlab and different festivals. The film projects he advised on include Lourdes (Jessica Hausner), Women without Men (Shirin Neshat), and Lore (Cate Shortland). Many of the projects made it to the competitions of the major film festivals (Cannes, Berlin, Toronto, Sundance...). Rodenkirchen's lecture marks the start of his Artist in Residency-period at the Netherlands Film Academy and its master's department. During his residency Rodenkirchen will investigate the need for a different conception of what we call 'a script'. read more

Holographic Windows | Martina Mrongovius

The spatial perspective through a hologram allows for a view into a dimensional scene. The holographic scene is explored by the viewer's movement - this moving around becoming a key aspect of the image experience.  In this lecture artist and designer Dr Martina Mrongovius describes  different techniques of holographic imaging and how holograms can make us aware of the nature of light and our own perception.

About
Creating spatially animated holographic scenes Martina Mrongovius’ work investigates the emergent psychophysical experience of multiple and moving perspectives.  She uses hundreds of photographs and video in her holographic scenes to capture the intertwined dynamics of an urban gaze.

Her exhibitions present conceptual experiments with holography. The role of the camera and hologram shaping perspective became the focus of her practice, with the exhibition ‘Explorations of the Holographic Gaze’ (Gallery 175, Seoul 2010) presenting holograms that linked and transformed the movement of the viewer to a visually suggested protagonist.  This body of work developed into a doctoral thesis and exhibition ‘The Emergent Holographic Scene’ (Spatial Information Architecture Laboratory, RMIT University / PostX gallery, Ghent, 2011) and her current exhibition 'Enfolded Light' at Direktorenhaus in Berlin, 1-17 November, 2013

Dr Mrongovius is the Director of the Center for the Holographic Arts (Holocenter) and an assistant professor at the Academy of Media Arts, Cologne. She works with holography studios around the world to develop their facilities, teach workshops and produce artwork.

www.martina-m.com

TimeSpace | Gabriel Lester

Gabriel Lester’s lecture titled TimeSpace, a term indicating the three dimensions of space supplemented with the fourth dimension of time, will focus on his artworks from a perception of spatial movement and time-based compositions. Through observing the world as a progressions through time and space, the lecture will address how the evolution of artistic ideas and experiences relate to the creation of narrative structures as well as static installation suggesting motion.

Gabriel Lester (b. Amsterdam 1972) started his artistic endeavor as a musician, stumbled into literature, studied cinema and finally became a visual artist. Lester’s many interests and expertise’s explain the themes, methods and nature of his present artwork. Most of his films and spatial installations have an implicit narrative layer, strong cinematic influences, sequential constructions and an obvious sense of rhythm.

www.gabriellester.com
www.polylester.com

Islands of Memory | Thomas Elsaesser

When parents – or grandparents – pass away, they tend to leave behind a trove of (audio-)visual material, whose uneven temporalities, non-synchronicities and accidentally historical traces can confront relatives and offspring with special dilemmas and awkward decisions. Are these photographs and home movies precious fragments of a family narrative, worth passing on to posterity? Or are they, in their eternal return of the same – same occasions, same locations, same protagonists and pretexts – mere collections of clichés, nostalgic evocations of moments forever past, best buried with those whose likeness they bear?

The subject of my lecture are family photos and home movies, read as symptoms of an anti-history within History (with a capital H), paying attention to the gaps between what can be seen and what is not shown, which is in competition with the (self-)evidence of the cinematic presence and vivid life, preserved in the images, the glances and gestures. The place: Berlin; the time: the years 1938-1944, the purpose: how to fashion from such material a documentary film that an audience might find meaningful.

Thomas Elsaesser is Professor Emeritus at the Department of Media and Culture of the University of Amsterdam. From 2006 to 2012 he was Visiting Professor at Yale University, and now teaches part-time at Columbia University, New York. He has authored, edited and co-edited some 20 volumes on film history, film theory, German and European cinema, Hollywood, New Media and Installation Art. His books have been translated into German, Dutch, French, Italian, Polish, Hungarian, Hebrew, Korean and Chinese.
Among his recent books as author are: Terror und Trauma (Berlin: Kadmos, 2007); Film Theory: An Introduction through the Senses (New York: Routledge, 2010, with Malte Hagener) and The Persistence of Hollywood (New York: Routledge, 2012). Forthcoming: German Cinema: From Mastering the Past to Guilt Management in the Present (New York: Routledge, 2013).

An Endlessly Moving Landscape | Aryan Kaganof

For this lecture, we will be joined by South-African director Aryan Kaganof, born as Ian Kerkhof. Kaganof's latest film is in competition at IDFA, 'An Inconsolable Memory'. In his lecture, Kaganof will focus on issues he deals with in his recent work.

As Britsh philosopher Nick Land described it:
"Kaganof does not repeat out of a fear that he has been misunderstood, quite the contrary. It is precisely because what he has filmed might merely be understood that it must perpetually be re-insisted. His landscape filming is not without a frightening simplicity. It is perhaps reducible to one question: what is an end? One shudders perhaps. An end? Are there more than one? Is not the very question a violation of sorts? In the end - one no longer denies it - there is death, but for the moment one has ... other ends? There must surely be other ends. Landscape filming as an end it itself? The end of democracy?"

About
Aryan Kaganof ® is a project of the African Noise Foundation. His film 'An Inconsolable Memory' can be seen in competition during the International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) on 25, 27, 28, 29, 30 November at the Munt, Tuschinski, EYE Cinema and Melkweg Rabozaal.

www.kagablog.com
www.kaganof.com
www.smssugarman.com

Programme season 2015/2016

Read more about the upcoming lectures here.

12 November 2013

The body as the protagonist in image making | Roberta Marques

From Eadweard Muybridge's body and motion picture essays to Piña Bausch' contemplative dance-cinema, DVD-8 choreographed narratives and Bill Viola's body-video-installations, Roberta Marques will talk about and show fragments of work that have inspired her to develop her own style in filmmaking and directing actors.

About
Roberta Marques is a Brazilian film director based in Amsterdam and working worldwide. She graduated at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie and DasArts Master of Theater. Her debut film RÂNIA premiered at the International Film Festival Rotterdam 2012 and was awarded Best Feature Film at the Festival do Rio (new trends) and at the FEMINA International Women´s Film Festival.

Filmography
RÂNIA - feature fiction, 35mm, color, 85min. 2011
Award Best Film, Premiere Brasil Novos Rumos, Festival do Rio 2011
Award Best Film, Femina 2012 | Festival Internacional de Cinema Feminino
Award Best Film – BNB special prize – Cine Ceará 2012
Best Actress for Graziela Felix – Cine Ceará 2012
Official selection Bright Future - International Film Festival Rotterdam 2012

LOOKING FORWARD MAN AND WOMAN - short fiction, HD, color, 12min, 2009
Official Selection Competition Cinedans, Amsterdam 2009
Official Selection Dance Camera West – Los Angeles 2010
Official Selection Competition IMZ – Dance Screen, Amsterdam 2010

LOOKING FORWARD – short fiction, DV, color, 8min, 2007
Award Best Film at ACT Festival, Bilbao Spain,2008
Official Selection Competition IMZ – Dance Screen, The Hague, Netherlands, 2008

DEIXA IR – Docudrama, DV, color, 60min. 2005.
Official Selection Competition Premiere Brasil, Rio International Festival, 2005.
Official Selection Competition Mediawave, Hungary, 2006.

ACORDA – short fiction, DV, color, 16min. 2005.
Official Selection Competition Curta Cinema, Rio de Janeiro 2006.
Award Best Film, Best Photgraphy, Best Actor For Rainbow, Fortaleza 2007

AMÁ-LA – short fiction, 16mm, color, 13min.1997
Award Jury Prize MixBrasil, São Paulo, 1998
Official Selection 27th International Film Festival Rotterdam 1998
Official Selection WorldWide Video Festival, Amsterdam 1997

www.robertamarques.com

THURSDAY 17 October 2013

17,000 Islands, an Interactive Documentary | Edwin

In Jakarta, Indonesia, there is a Disneyland-style museum park named Taman Mini. It attempts to present the diverse cultures of Indonesia in a condensed and manicured form - an idealized image of the 17,000 Islands of Indonesia.
Fascinated by this idealized and artificial representation, Indonesian director and Master of Film student Edwin and Norwegian director Thomas Østbye embarked on a task to lose control of their own film, and capture some real life within this controlled and artificial setting.
The website 17000IslandsInteractive.com opens in 2013. Here the two directors invite you to rip apart their original movie, take their place as directors and make your own film with their material.

About
Master of Film student Edwin is an Indonesian filmmaker. His latest film, 'Postcards From The Zoo' was nominated for Golden Bear at Berlinale 2012. His first feature 'Blind Pig Who Wants to Fly' received the FIPRESCI Prize at the International Film Festival Rotterdam 2009, and his short film 'Kara, Anak Sebatang Pohon' was the first Indonesian film to be shown in the Director’s Fortnight in Cannes 2005.

More information about the project:
Article in Filmmaker Magazine
17,000 Islands Facebook page
Video introduction

Past events (2013-2014)

fall/winter 2014
Lessons in Realism: Episode of the Sea
Lonnie van Brummelen and Siebren de Haan

Ethics of Appropriation: Found Footage between Archive and Internet
Thomas Elsaesser

The Art of Forgetting
Riemer Knoop

BERNARD, a film to prove all sceptics wrong
Hidde & Joggem Simons and Thomas Wander

Making sense, three times over
Urszula Antoniak

ABOVE US ALL - the meaning of the moment
Eugenie Jansen, Albert Elings and Michel Schöpping


spring/summer 2014

On truth and fiction in documentary cinema
Jos de Putter

The past tells – telling the past
Willem Capteyn

TACTILE CINEMA: hands on exploration of analogue film
WORM.filmwerkplaats

The making of 'One Hand Clapping', found choreography installation and film
Peter Delpeut & Menno Otten

FACELESS
Bogomir Doringer

Drama in a time-less world
Dick Tuinder

Voice – Script – Public
Wendelien van Oldenborgh


fall/winter 2013

Three Farewells
Janis Rafailido

An Endlessly Moving Landscape
Aryan Kaganof

Holographic Windows
Martina Mrongovius

The body as the protagonist in image making
Roberta Marques

17,000 Islands, an Interactive Documentary
Edwin

Islands of Memory
Thomas Elsaesser

TimeSpace
Gabriel Lester


spring/summer 2013
'Sunken Garden': combining opera and 3D-film
Michel van der Aa

Percussive ambience
Dan Geesin

"Nonsense is all that interests me"
André Schreuders

Different Times, different scripts. Or: how can we write cinema?
Franz Rodenkirchen

The Future is Now
Patricia Pisters

‘Enjoy Poverty’ and beyond
Renzo Martens

Noli me tangere (touch me not)
Ibrahim Quraishi

Illusion 24 times a second
Nenad Fiser

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