With regard to the Ivens DVD collection, Daniel Biltereyst writes: ‘Film historians regard Ivens as one of the most influential documentary filmmakers. Indeed, Ivens oeuvre spans not only a large part of film history – roughly from the end of the 1920s until the 1980s – it also forms an impressive testimonial to international world politics.’ And: ‘It is a good thing that all these documentary films, that have stirred up so much controversy in the past, but that are only rarely seen nowadays, finally have become available on DVD. The new box contains 5 digital discs with a total of 20 films and some documentaries on Ivens, complemented with a hefty book containing more than 500 pages. The box-set has been compiled by the European Foundation Joris Ivens, which is based in Ivens’ place of birth, Nijmegen. During five years the Ivens Foundation, led by André Stufkens, has been nurturing this special project. The Foundation, keeper of an extensive archive on Ivens, has consulted numerous film collections, among them the Dutch Filmmuseum, in order to track down and reconstruct the most authentic film versions. Especially the digitization and restoration of the films proved to be a daring exploit, as is shown in a short documentary. A number of documentaries on Ivens also prove to be very absorbing, especially Jean Rouch’s Cinemafia (1980), a freestyle filmed interview with Joris Ivens and Henri Storck. Lastly, the box contains an interesting book by André Stufkens, director of the Ivens Foundation and curator of the DVD project. In this publication Stufkens describes in a very systematic, but no less enthralling style, the content, cinematic qualities, historical production- and reception-context, as well as the restoration of the films. For the specific study of Ivens, as well as of the international documentary in general, the release  of Joris Ivens – Filmmaker of the World marks a very special moment’.

 

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