In May 1997 Marceline Loridan-Ivens made a present of film material and a camera of Joris Ivens and herself to the Escuela Internacional de Cine y Television established in Cuba. This film school for the Third World has already educated many filmmakers. Dutch television broadcast a documentary about the anniversary of this film school. Among other people Marceline Loridan-Ivens, Garcia Marquez and Fernando Birri could be seen in it.
In the series I Feel Like Film of the Roman Catholic Film Action a booklet appeared on Une Histoire de Vent last year. Sylvain de Bleeckere, a Belgian art philosopher wrote a fascinating book about the backgrounds of this film by Joris Ivens and Marceline Loridan-Ivens which Western people were not aware of. Not only did it discuss the meanings of the various Chinese mythological characters that appear in the film, it also link up with the works of Ivens. According to De Bleeckere Une Histoire de Vent is a key film and with its uniquely autobiographical character it is a significant testament of the 20th century and the centuries before and a promise for the next century. Were the 20th century and the centuries before plagued by mutual lack of understanding and colonial oppression, this film gives evidence of concilliation between East and West, of liberation by imagination and solidarity
In the film De Bleeckere discovers that Ivens and Loridan not only see the wind as a natural phenomenon, but also as a cultural phenomenon: the wind as breath of the earth and as a metaphysical force, which continually puts everything in motion and changes everything. Therefore the wind is also the key to Ivens' works: filming the impossible and untameable. The book is for sale through the Foundation (56 pages, fl 13.90) and in bookshops (publishing house Kok Kampen; ISBN 90 42 7909 7)
Publishing house Jan Mets has made a special offer of the Joris Ivens biography written by Hans Schoots with the title Gevaarlijk Leven (Dangerous Life): from fl 69.90 for fl 25.00. (Jan Mets; ISBN 90 5330 162 3). Expectations are that the English translation will be published next September by the Amsterdam Univiversity Press.
During the 11th Festival du Cinema Nordique the Foundation organised an exhibition about Joris Ivens from 14 to 28 March. In a 16 th century building belonging to the local Tourist Information just opposite the cathedral and the festival tent the public was able to get an impression of the life and work of Ivens. The exhibition contained authentic posters, objects such as the Golden Lion and cameras, documents from the Archives, panels from the exhibition Joris Ivens world renowned film maker and photographs of Marceline Loridan-Ivens and Marion Michelle. The festival showed an extensive retrospective of Ivens, Claude Brunel wrote the catalogue and Robert Destanques among others took care of a discussion meeting. The festival drew a larger audience than last year (35,000 people).
During the 9th thematic Image by Image film festival of visual anthropology in Soeterijn, Amsterdam, Rain and Ciné-mafia were shown (4 -7 June). The latter film is a direct-cinema-portrait made by Jean Rouch, who invited Joris Ivens and Henri Storck to come to Katwijk (Netherlands), the place where Ivens' film Breakers (1929) was shot. They reminisced about colleagues, about camera techniques and the documentary. The dialogue of the film and an article was included in the festival catalogue.
The retrospective in Nijmegen (19 November till 3 December) will be the most complete ever shown. Marceline Loridan-Ivens has given permission to show all the films of which it is technically possible at all. A total of 67 film titles are scheduled, among which the three versions of Spanish Earth and the controversial Eastern Bloc films. During the search for the films the Shell company film Oil for Alladin's Lamp (1941) emerged, just as The Story of G.I.Joe. The Jugoslavian part of The First Years appears to have been destroyed, apart from several rushes of Tito. Of the film Le Peuple et ses Fusils (1970) no copy is available any more.
Seattle (24 July): Rain (Ivens/Franken); Paris in the Vidéothèque de Paris (28 March) during the thematic festival Ouvriers Ouvrières: Misère au Borinage (Ivens/Storck); Tübingen Stuttgart (19-27 June) during the 15th Französische Filmtage in the programme Carte Blanche with a personal choice of films of the actress and singer Hanna Schygulla: Une Histoire de Vent; Granada (5 December 1997) in the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia during the thematic festival Maquina Filmica, mechanical metaphores and the avant-garde film art: The Bridge and Etudes des Mouvements.
