In due course the complete program with places and times will be available on the website.
Film Society of Lincoln
Center
Walter Reade Theatre, New York March 20-28
Conference Lincoln Center March 25
Opening Night projection of the same filmprogramme
Joris Ivens presented in 1936 March 25
Exhibition of photos at the Furham Gallery, Lincoln Center March 20-28
Afterwards the retrospective will be continued at 8 venues
National Gallery of Art & American University April 4-14, 2002
Washington, D.C.
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston April 11-27, 2002
Cornell Cinema, Cornell University April 28-May 7, 2002
Ithaca, New York
Cleveland Cinematheque May 1-29, 2002
Cleveland, Ohio
Art Institute of Chicago , Gene Siskel Film Center May 10-31, 2002
Chicago, Illinois
Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley Art Museum May 30-June 13, 2002
Berkeley, California
Cinematheque Ontario, June 14-21, 2002
Toronto, Ontario (Canada)
Pacific Cinematheque June 22-30, 2002
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
'A small Dutchman with a
small suitcase full of films finds himself in New York and a year later I was
invited to have dinner with the president of the United States, showed him my
film about Spain and hoped to influence his policy. I also believed in the New
Deal and I wanted to make a film about it for the Department of Agriculture
only too gladly. I was able to make four international films there, which would
never have been possible in Europe. Imagine! I was even elected the first president
of the American Association of Documentary Film Producers, with Paul Strand
and Willard van Dyke as vice-presidents. Those years in America were very important
for me…', thus Joris Ivens told in an interview.
When on February 18, 1936 Joris Ivens landed in New York, he was so broke that
had had to borrow $250 in Amsterdam to pass American immigration. With only
one suit and one pair of shoes he set foot in the New world - after working
in the Soviet Union for a year and a half: 'New York is a spectacle. It is an
overwhelming and at the same time exciting town, miserable and magnificent,
it is a force I had never imagined…What I don't know is that this interlude
is going to take quite some time longer than I could think when I disembarked.
I'll stay there for nine years. In these nine years I'll make The Spanish Earth,
The 400 Million (China), Power and the Land and collaborate on a lot of other
films, the Second World War will break out, I'll go to China, to Hollywood,
and - the beginning of a next stage - Indonesia. My stay in the United States
is more important than people generally assume'.
To show the importance of his American period and to make a new generation acquainted
with his work, the Foundation organizes a retrospective tour of the United States.
This Joris Ivens USA Tour is made possible by the HGIS-Culture program, the
joint program of the State Department and the Department of Education, Culture
and Sciences to intensify international cultural relations. It is supported
by the Consulate General in New York, by Holland Film. Together with Red Diaper
Productions and the Film Museum in Amsterdam some sixteen films will tour along
six American cities. The opening will take place in the Lincoln Center in New
York, where a photo exhibition will be organized and a symposium will be held
with American film scientists. A catalogue will be published and the Foundation
prepares a DVD-packet containing thirteen Ivens classics.
Ivens' arrival fell on fertile ground. Roosevelt's New Deal stimulated a lot
of artists to associate with the daily life of American farmers, laborers, miners
and the unemployed. Young filmmakers saw in Ivens a model, an example of an
experienced professional, who could pass on the expert knowledge and vision
of the European avant-garde. America and Ivens hit it off. Soon he was able
to earn some money with lectures, workshops and showing films at universities
and the Museum of Modern Art. The Department of Agriculture, Shell Company,
the Department of Defense and independent production companies commissioned
several films. 'You don't need a letter of recommendation in America. When you
set your mind and heart to it, you have thousands of chances more than in Europe'.
With The Spanish Earth Ivens made his most important documentary. His films
regularly reached the top three of best foreign films of the National Board
of Review of Motion Pictures and he became a member of the jury of the Academy
Award for documentary film.
His charm and energy enabled him to collaborate with many prominent American
artists: Ernest Hemingway, Robert Flaherty, John Dos Passos, Paul Strand, Greta
Garbo, Frank Capra, Robert Capa, Joseph Losey, Lillian Hellman, Clifford Odets,
Orson Welles, Joan Crawford, Luise Reiner, Paul Robeson and many others. In
Hollywood and in New York he also met many Exil-artists, among whom Hanns Eisler,
Piet Mondrian, Bertolt Brecht, John Grierson and William Dieterle,