During the  third Dutch film week 

in Havana this October there will be a tribute to Joris Ivens. This is a collaboration between the Cinemateca de Cuba, Holland Film and the Dutch Embassy in Havana. Seven films by Joris Ivens, including two Cuban films are scheduled at the Ciné Chaplin. During the Dutch filmweek several features, documentaries and animated films of contemporary dutch film makers will be screened.(See the complete program here).

Robau Antonio Mazon, the programmer of the Cinemateca asked Olivia Buning, coordinator of this program, if it was possible to get an Ivens retrospective. The European Foundation Joris Ivens contributed to this retrospective where also the two films made in Cuba in 1961 (Carnet de viaje and Pueblo en armas) will be shown. Maybe former students of Ivens, who taught at the ICAIC (Instituto Cubano del Arte e Industria Cinematográficos) will be present at the screening. They worked as assistance on these two films. In the book `On which side and What universe` Ivens writes about another (secret) filmschool on Cuba of wich he was the director.

"At that time I worked at the ICAIC. One day I had a conversation with Osmani Cienfuegos, brother of Camillo. Osmani had a responsible position in the Cuban army, and he stated that I am one of the few filmmakers with war experience. He explained that Cuba, while it was constantly under attack and an invasion threatened, nobody was there that could film the attacks. This was in his eyes a deplorable situation and in conclusion he added: "We have an army, but we have no one that can handle a camera. Fidel wants to fill this deficit and I am sure that you with your experience are ideal for the job to train these war cameraman "
Without hesitation I said yes. A short time later I was talking with Fidel Castro. I asked him what he wanted, and he had replied: "Militant filmmakers who will have nothing else to do than to shoot combat actions in case of attacks or bombings. You should especially remember that this has nothing to do with filmart because then I would send them to you at the ICAIC. No, I want practical, fast-working people. I want soldiers not artists. "


Ivens and Castro talking


still tv show ´Zomergasten´
During a three-hour interview program of the VPRO, where guests can show a selection of film clips, Erik van Lieshout showed a fragment of Borinage (1934). Van Lieshout, internationally one of the most famous Dutch contemporary artists, was fascinated by crisis, places, people and artworks created by crisis. In the interview  Van Lieshoutcalled Ivens` film Borinage a point of reference, especially the aesthetic properties of black and white, and the social struggle. 

Read more: Erik van Lieshout and the Borinage

Group photo of the photographers working in Amsterdam (ARFOT `s) seated, second from right, Joris Ivens. 1931, Coll. JIA, Nijmegen.

A major international exhibition on the history of the workers photography at theMuseo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid with more than a thousand pictures, magazines, books and filmsshowing illustrate the importance of the workers` photography. Pictures from Robert Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson and John Heartfield, but just as good pictures of anonymous photographers and snapshots.The Ivens` films Komsomol (1933), Borinage(1934) and The Spanish Earth (1937) are continuousily screening.

According to curator Jorge Ribalta, the international workers`photography are a key moment in the history of photography. This movement, created between the two world wars, is often ignored, underestimated or marginalized, but the exhibition catalog and symposia photography show that the workers introduced a new model of photography. This new model developed by conscious rebels against the bourgeois `model`of photography. But the ARFOT model includes not only a modernist aesthetic, based on the mechanics of the camera and the mechanics of degrading industrial world, in production and distribution (through magazines, newspapers, books, movies,unions, political associations and exhibitions inside and outside) but the ARFOT was a serious alternative to the bourgeois photography, media and cultural world. 

Joris Ivens is the Dutch leading figure within the movement. His stay in Berlin, the Soviet Union, Frankrijk and the U.S.A. provided direct contact with the workers` expressions of photography.Through his films he gave a personal twist on the development.

The exhibition is on show until August 22, 2011

Cover photo book about Kees Ivens and the 75 year old Waal bridge. 
Photo Hustinx. Publishing
 Vantilt/FragmaPublishing


Nijmegen celebrates on June 16 the 75th anniversary of the Waal Bridge, which was the largest arch span bridge of Europe at the time. The father of Joris Ivenstook in 1905  the initiative to build the bridge over the Waal, the great river thatconnects Rotterdam to the Ruhr industrial aera in Germany.  TheMuseum Valkhof displays the exhibition `Kees Ivens and the Waal Bridge 1905-1936 ` until November 6.

Read more: Kees Ivens and 75 years Waalbrug

Anne Jaspers, a volunteer with the foundation since 2006, finished the task she had to archive all newspaper articles about Ivens from 1913 until now. The files will be put online soon and will be transparent for everyone. The articles that are about or refer to Ivens are open for research and easily accessible. Anne worked one day a week for four years on this archive. The file contains over 700 pageswith keywords.

Here is a foretaste of the official publication:

Clippings 1913 - 2011


Hemingway
 (Clive Owen), Gellhorn (Nicole Kidman) and Joris Ivens (Lars Ulrich), March 23, 2011. Photo:Rolling Stone


In San Francisco the filming of the television series about the love relationshipbetween the journalist Martha Gellhorn, played by Nicole Kidman and writerErnest Hemingway, played by Clive Owen has started. Metallica drummer LarsUlrich plays the role of Joris Ivens. The American couple worked in May andApril 1937 in Madrid together with Joris Ivens on the filming of The SpanishEarth.


Cover"Photography Meets Film", Joris Ivens film The 400 Million, a photograph by Robert Capa from Ivens Archives.

Recently in the series `Rijksmuseum Studies in Photography`Rixt Bosma published  the book about the trip and the work of Robert Capa and Joris Ivens in 1938 in China. The title `Photography meets Film. Capa, Ivens and Fernhout in China, 1938` refers to the 1938 film The 400 Million, that Joris Ivens made,while photographer Robert Capa accompanied the journey as a photographer.

Read more: Robert Capa and Joris Ivens in China, a new book


Cover documentary, made by prof. Ephraim Smith.

`The Journal of American History` published a positive review of the documentary Power for the Parkinsons, made by prof. Ephraim Smith. This re-visit documentary tells the story of the production and impact of Joris Ivens` documentary Power and the Land (1940). Prof. Smith started his research about Ivens` film in 2007 and for this purpose visited the Ivens archive in Nijmegen. His film has been broadcasted in various states and universities in the US.

Read more: Positive review on Power for the Parkinsons

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    Nijmegen, the Netherlands


 


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