During the Festival La Memoria Restaurada more than 30 Ivens films were shown under the title of 'Joris Ivens, Ciudadano del Mundo' in the cultural centre of Mexico University in Mexico City. Marceline Loridan-Ivens delivered an introduction with Une Histoire De Vent and was extensively interviewed by newspapers and magazines. The organisation was jointly conducted by the Dutch Film Museum and the Dutch Embassy in Mexico.
The Iranian filmmaker Reza Allamehzadeh proposed a documentary about the documentary film. In Framing The Facts the problems of today's documentary films are represented on the basis of fragments of documentaries that have won the Joris Ivens Award in recent years. Reality and Truth, Manipulation, Partiality and Impartiality, Aesthetics are the themes link to each other by means of classic examples. Each thematic sequence is preceded by a Joris Ivens film fragment. The theme of Ivens' 'The Flying Dutchman' will serve as visual metaphore. Reza Allmehzadeh was apolitical prisoner in Iran and now lives and works in the Netherlands. Sherman de Jesus of Memphis Film & Television will produce this film, which according to plan will have to be on show at about the Ivens centenary on NPS in November 1998.
During the 9th International Documentary Film Festival a documentary of the Rotterdam film maker Pieter-Jan Smit had its first performance under the title of Magnitogorsk, The Youth Of The Blast-Furnace. Pieter-Jan Smit casts a critical glance on the suppressed sides of Song Of Heroes (Komsomol).
In 1932 Joris Ivens filmed the steel town of Magnitogorsk, which among other things had been knocked up by the youth organisation Komsomol. Ivens' energetic editing and Hanns Eisler's stirring music coincided with their idealist priciples. Ivens, however,
did not show that 20.000 kulaks had been forced to contribute to its construction. Touching is the interview with the widow of Afanasjev, the leading actor in Song of Heroes, who was excecuted 4 years after his role by Stalin terror.
NFM and the Dutch Film Festival also showed Song Of Heroes and this new documentary side by side, which for that matter also sheds light on present day Magnitogorsk.
Tinto Bras and the Taviani brothers, former collaborators of Joris Ivens in Italy, cooperated in the realisation of a documentary under the title of 'Quando l'Italia Non Era Un Paese Povero' by Stefano Missio of the Centro Sperimentale di Cinema-tografia in Rome. In it among other things the censorship is dicussed which the RAI (the Italian state television) exercised during the filming of Ivens film L'Italia Non ? Un Paesa Povere from 1960. Images with too much poverty were forbidden.
A series of 6 interviews was broadcast from August 18 - 29 on the French cultural radio station France Culturelle which had been made by the Parisian journalist Robert Gr?lier with Joris Ivens in the seventies. Gr?lier asked straightforward and critical questions. An article in 'NRC' newspaper drew the attention of Dutch listeners to this programme which could bereceived in Holland as well. The recordings can be consulted in the ESJI archives.
Because of a renewed interest in the composer Hanns Eisler will the complete correspondence of Eisler be published. Eisler, who just as Joris Ivens was born in 1898 and whose centenary will be celebrated next year cooperated a lot with Joris Ivens. He wrote the music for among other things Song Of Heroes, New Earth and Rain. Yet hardly any correspondence between them can be found. About three Ivens films will be shown as part of an Eisler memo rial in America next year.
A 'Workshop Joris Ivens' will be opened in Toulouse this year. This studio plans to screen documentaries and assists documentarists with equipment to make films. In this way they try to encourage the creative documentary. Marceline Loridan-Ivens is the patroness and honorary chairwoman of the association. Information: Louis-Michel Vicens, 13 rue de l?Industrie, 31.000 Toulouse, tel 0033-(0)561634731.
The student Francesco Andreotti of Pisa Uviversity completed his doctoral thesis on Joris Ivens titled: 'Il cinema di Joris Ivens e la messa in scena della realta'. During the Pesaro Film Festival New Earth was screened.
The Cantonese television company Guang Dong practically finished a documentary on Joris Ivens. The camera man of the Ivens film Before Spring of 1958 was interviewed as well as the little girl playing a part in the episode La Pharmacie of the Yu Kong series. They tell about the realization of the shooting of the two films.
Marceline Loridan-Ivens
finished the script for her next film. The idea for the film springs from thirty
years back. She discussed the project with Joris Ivens in his last years, because
the film was meant to be the counterpart of Une Histoire De Vent. The working
title at that time, Une Histoire De Feu, refered to Marceline's, then called
Rosenberg, experiences in camp Auschwitz and the consequenses of it to her life.
In the first version of the script, written by marceline Loridan and Elisabethe
D., Joris Ivens played an important role. This film will give an asthonishing
view on camp experiences, presented in a new film language.
The shooting will probably start in June this year.
A late first performance
of an Ivens film from 1939! For the first time Japanese cinema goers could see
the film The 400 Million, during the Yamagata Film Festival.
This anti-fascist film deals with the Chinese resistance - nationalists and
communists - against the Japanese invaders and had been under Japanese government
censorship for years.
The Leipzig Film Festival
celebrated its 40th anniversary with among other things the Ivens film La Seine
a Rencontr? Paris. In the jubileebook 'White doves on dark earth' the influence
of Joris Ivens on this festival and his generation of documentarists is written,
especially his influence on Third-World filmmakers.
Octavio Corzatar, Santiago Alvarez, Jerzy Toeplitz and Chris Marker describe
with love Ivens' progressive role. Marceline Loridan-Ivens reveals in a chapter
the conflict from 1968 which led to a rupture for many years between Joris Ivens,
herself and the festival. In that year she took seven films with her from the
May-revolution in France. These films were not allowed to be shown. They were
shown illegal and went underground.
This rupture was restored in 1989 after they've got the festivalprize Golden
Dove for Une Histoire De Vent.
L'Association des Amis de Joris Ivens' showed at its annual meeting in the Max Linder Panorama a programme with Rain, Carnet De Viaje, ...a Valparaiso, Carnet De Viaje and Power And The Land on the 30th of November. The meeting was attended by 450 interested people.
The biography of Joris Ivens' life, titled 'Dangerous Life' by Hans Schoots, published in 1996 will be translated in English. Amsterdam University Press intends to market the book in cooperation with the American publishing house of Michigan University next year.