#Doc Issue

Punks in IDFA Competition Masters nods for Appel, Hoogendijk and Raes Orwa Nyrabia talks IDFA 2019 Kids and Doc Competition: Dutch films rule The Gielings and the Van Velzens in Dutch Competition

Issue #37 November 2019 IDFA issue Index COLOPHON 4-5 Punk doccers Maasja Ooms’ Punks 24-25 The joy of Six Oeke Hoogen­dijk’s in IDFA Competition is a loose, hand- My Rembrandt offers a mosaic of SEE NL, a collaboration between held portrait of problem kids in France delightful and gripping stories sur­ Eye and the Netherlands Film rounding the passions evoked by the Fund, is the umbrella body for the international promotion of 6-7 Twin objectives In Prison for Profit Dutch Master Dutch films and film culture. the Van Velzen twins seek to expose the SEE NL Magazine is published four way British private security firm G4S 26-27 Après le déluge John Appel’s times per year and is distributed to flaunts human rights in South Africa latest feature doc Once the Dust Settles, international film professionals. world-premiering in IDFA Masters, Editors in chief: Ido Abram, 8-9 Chronicle of a killing Ramón revisits three scenes of mayhem to Lisa Linde Nieveld (Eye), Jonathan Gieling’s new film, co-directed with his assess how tourism can work as a balm, Mees (Netherlands Film Fund) son Salvador, illustrates how people in or as an irritant Executive editor: a small Spanish village deal with their Nick Cunningham Contributors: Innas Tsuroiya, bloody and turbulent history under 28-29 Diminishing powers Two new Geoffrey Macnab Franco Dutch films at IDFA assess the effects of Concept & Design: Lava.nl crippling diseases from both scientific Layout: def., Amsterdam 10-11 A tale told in archive Sandra and personal perspectives Printing: mediaLiaison Beerends’ drama-doc They Call Me Printed on FSC paper Babu is the fictionalised and archive- 30-31 Dutch quartet Four more films © All rights reserved: derived story of an Indonesian nanny, are selected across IDFA First The Netherlands Film Fund and told over the course of a tumultuous 20th Appearance, Paradocs and Student Eye Filmmuseum 2019 Century Competition CONTACT Ido Abram 12-13 When right is wrong Luuk 32-35 Kids rule ok! Half of the 12 films Director of SEE NL Bouwman’s documentary account of the in IDFA’s Kids and Docs competition are E [email protected] rise of Dutch fascism in the 1930s from The Netherlands. SEE NL reports Eye Filmmuseum PO BOX 37767 14-15 Cruise control Two dynamic 36-37 The business of doc IDFA’s 1030 BJ T Amsterdam young directors, Sophie Dros and Adriek van Nieuwenhuysee talks to The Netherlands Loretta van der Horst, are selected for SeeNL about the industry offer at T +31 20 758 2375 Dutch Competition at IDFA 2019 IDFA 2019 W www.eyefilm.nl

Jonathan Mees 16-17 Looking, hoping, waiting 38-41 Shock of the new SEE NL Communications In Reber Dosky’s new doc, will the assesses the Dutch projects at the Netherlands Film Fund appearance of an elusive leopard be radical and experimental DocLab 2019 E [email protected] a portent of peace for the Iraqi Kurdish Netherlands Film Fund Sidik? 42-43 Eye exhibition The Children’s Pijnackerstraat 5 Games series by Francis Alÿs, running 1072 JS Amsterdam 18-19 Café and society Petr Lom’s December 2019 to March 2020 The Netherlands Angels on Diamond Street is set in T +31 20 570 7676 a soup kitchen in Philadelphia, 44 Back cover Maasja Ooms whose W www.filmfund.nl

celebrated for opening its doors to Punks is selected for IDFA Feature- ISSN: 2589-3521 immigrants regardless of their status length Competition

20-21 Not so merry go round In Carrousel, Marina Meijer chronicles the lives of several vulnerable young men in a transformation centre in Rotterdam

22-23 The doc stops here IDFA chief Orwa Nyrabia on the latest edition of the world’s most important doc fest Cover: Once the Dust Settles John Appel See page 26 Our Island Lennah Koster page 35

2 3 Competitions for Feature-Length and Dutch Documentary Punk doccers Punks Maasja Ooms

“I can feel the tensions Maasja Ooms their caregiver. The boys were really On Punks, Sander Vos was her up for it. (“They were already editor. In their work together, she or emotions and fantasising about the red carpet.”) and Vos realised “only long, intact transfer them through She explained to them that making fragments worked very strongly. my camera” documentaries was painstaking and Only then the viewer feels the sometimes difficult and tension of the conversation.” uncomfortable work. Her proposal This meant they had to “kill some was to shoot for five days during of our darlings” and simplify the which time she would have access storyline in order to accommodate to every part of their lives. what were often lengthy When her last film was released, conversations. “Our solution was to Alicia (2017), about a young girl “That way they could experience take only one main character and living in an orphanage, director whether the camera felt good. After understand his story in more detail Maasja Ooms travelled all over five days we would see if all were still so that it coloured the other stories The Netherlands with it. At sold on the same page. If not, I would’ve without being specific.” out screenings, she and her destroyed all my material. This five- producer Willemijn Cerutti took day trial period was also for me, to The teenagers have now seen the part in discussions about other find out if I saw a film in it.” film and they have all also been children like Alicia. At one of the invited to Amsterdam for the events, Ooms met a Dutch As it turned out, the boys enjoyed premiere during IDFA at the woman who looked after problem being filmed. Petra, the caregiver, Tuschinski cinema. teenagers on a farm in France. didn’t mind that the focus was on them, not her. The boys’ parents No, Ooms herself wasn’t an angry “She invited me for a visit. I told her also gave the project their approval. and alienated teenager. “I wasn’t immediately: I don’t make films Ooms knew from the outset exactly a punk. I was quite the opposite. about the approach or way of what she was looking for. “I didn’t I was a helpful child,” she says. thinking of someone who works in want to make a film about what “It was later, in my twenties, youth care. That view is never the boys had done, but about who that I expressed my anger towards a starting point,” the director they are deep down. About their my parents for leaving me in remembers of their initial struggles and the things that go a children’s home for three years. encounter. Nonetheless she decided unnoticed by adults.” As a child that fact made me to take up the invitation. She was feel very uncertain whether due to visit a friend in the south of Ooms shot the film handheld, in I belonged.” France anyway and thought she a loose and fluid style. “It is a way of could drop by the farm. filming in which I can feel the Thanks to her own experiences, presence of the person I film. In this the director says she has a natural “Arriving there was exciting. way I can better feel the tensions sympathy for the boys and isn’t Four boys were very curious; a or emotions and transfer them frightened by their anger. “What I documentary filmmaker was through my camera.” She ended up see in that anger is a signal for visiting them. Although I planned to shooting 70 hours, doing almost shortcomings in the family home. stay one night, I ended up staying everything herself. “I shoot my own Children have no words, they feel for five weeks,” Ooms notes. She films. I operate as a one-woman- pain, sadness or injustice, and saw an opportunity to make a film crew, so I am also doing the sound,” sooner or later that is expressed.” about the boys, instead of about she says. Geoffrey Macnab

Punks Director & script: Maasja Ooms Production: Cerutti Film - Willemijn Cerutti Co-production: VPRO Sales: Dutch CORE Media

4 5 Competition for Dutch Documentary Prison For Profit Ilse & Femke van Velzen Twin objectives

Hopkins who published shocking Dutch audiences, they realised that reports about the torture and death documentary is “a strong, powerful “This is definitely a story of inmates in the jail six years ago. tool” which can be used to change that needs to be told” “We knew her work. We had been both attitudes and behaviour. following her for a while,” Ilse says They’ve since made films about of Hopkins. The journalist’s exposé such subjects as sexual violence in had been major news, but only for Congo and civil war in South Sudan. a few days. “Then, in the end, Ilse and Femke van Velzen nothing really happened. There ”We can, side by side, take on those were no consequences for very heavy topics. We can ventilate it They are identical twins who the company. The situation in the to each other. We don’t have the share a passion for fighting prison has not changed since. burden on only one of our shoulders,”­ injustice, are prepared to spend Warders say it’s much more says Ilse. Femke adds that they’ve years making their campaigning dangerous now for themselves.” “improved enormously as directors, documentaries and will do every­ producers and storytellers.” thing in their power to ensure the The sisters therefore decided to films are seen by their subjects, follow up on Hopkins’ original The Van Velzens organise impact writes Geoffrey Macnab. work, working with her in an screenings of their films in the attempt to hold G4S to account. countries in which they are set. Ilse and Femke van Velzen are “This is definitely a story that needs In 2011, they set up the Mobile fearless and think nothing of taking to be told because the company Cinema Foundation. Some of their on the biggest, most ruthless doesn’t have a great track record screenings (for example of Fighting multinational corporations. worldwide,” Femke says. the Silence) have attracted audiences Put simply, they are forces of nature. of up to 10,000 and their work has In their new film Prison for Profit Ilse and Femke began their now been seen by millions in Africa. they expose the way British private campaigning at an early age. Even “It is very powerful. The audiences security firm G4S allegedly flaunts as kids, the sisters (born in Delft in we reach, especially in the remote human rights and common decency 1980) would stand up for those areas, are unbelievable,” Ilse says. in the way it runs The Mangaung being bullied at school. “Femke and Patronising NGO representatives Prison in Johannesburg, South Africa. I are quite fortunate because we used to try to tell the sisters that their always had each other. We stood films wouldn’t be understood by The sisters are very aware that G4S strong next to each other,” Ilse says. African audiences. “But of course, may try to suppress the film “It was easier to stand up against these communities are built on story­ (a premiere in IDFA Competition for a bully if we did it together.” telling. They can pick it up better Dutch Documentary) but that maybe than our western audiences.” doesn’t daunt them. They’ve fact They didn’t originally set out to checked it exhaustively and have become documentary makers. The twin sisters have now been lawyers on hand should the It happened because, during their working together making films for company come after them. fourth year of study (at separate 18 years. They have the same universities) they decided to make determination and work ethic. If they Prison For Profit, supported by the a film together rather than write believe in a project, they “won’t let Netherlands Film Fund and the a thesis. That’s how they came to go” until it is completed. As Femke Production Incentive, is inspired by shoot Bushkids (2002) in South puts it, if they get a gut feeling to the investigative reporting of Ruth Africa. When they showed it to make a film, “there is no way back.”

Prison for Profit Directors & script: Ilse van Velzen & Femke van Velzen Production: IFproductions - Ilse van Velzen & Femke van Velzen Co-production: EO Docs

6 7 Competition for Dutch Documentary The Death of Antonio Sánchez Lomas Ramón & Salvador Gieling Chronicle of a killing

resident wrote a book about Antonio also agrees to the The film tests the Ramón Gieling Salvador Gieling guerrilla warfare under Franco, dramatisation of his brother’s boundaries between which opened with the dreadful brutal murder, together with two documentary, fiction scene described above. When other young men. and art Gieling asked around, his friends and neighbours happily concurred As in previous works such as with the account in the book. Erbarme dich and the Johan Cruyff- “They said, ‘yes of course, this is the inspired En un momento dado, story of my uncles, my dad’… In the Ramón is single-minded in shaping village they just don’t talk about this the film that he wants. That said, Ramón Gieling’s latest film, history,” he stresses. he is, with Salvador, both generous co-directed with his son and inclusive, and the on-screen Salvador and supported by the Ramón and Salvador set out contribution of his characters Netherlands Film Fund, therefore to recreate some of the allows him to test the boundaries illustrates how people in a small local stories from this period, between documentary, fiction and Spanish village deal with their culminating in the deathly parade, art. At the beginning Ramón asks bloody and turbulent history. using local villagers. Chief among rhetorically to Adolfo if “the idea of these is Adolfo, a left-wing firebrand the film was mine, yours, or was it The date of January 20 1952 is whose politics determine that he a mutual idea,” and one concludes etched within the collective can’t get a job of high status, despite that there was a high degree of consciousness of the inhabitants his considerable intellect (he works parity on the part of directors and of Frigiliana, a village in the south as a school janitor). Even though he their key protagonist throughout of Spain. That was the day that worries about re-opening wounds the process. Antonio Lomas, a Communist from the past within the closed partisan and the last of the village community, Adolfo goes “Adolfo is a fantastic character,” revolutionary ‘Maquis’, was arrested along with the Gielings’ plans for underlines Ramón. “I didn’t know and shot by Franco’s Guardia Civil the film, playing a core role within him but one of the other guys in the outside his house, in front of his the reconstruction as a vicious film said, ‘I want you to meet wife and daughters. His body was captain within the Guardia Civil. someone who can be important for subsequently paraded through the We also see that Adolfo has a son you’. From that moment there was village on the back of a white mule with learning difficulties, a situation an immediate bond with Adolfo and by the authorities during the San that places considerable strain on he was very happy that finally there Sebastian fiesta. A painting in the his marriage. was someone who would make town hall, deposited anonymously, something about this history that depicts the scene vividly. Another great character is Antonio he felt had to see the light of day. el de la Poeta, whose brother and A very important characteristic is When Dutch filmmaker Ramón father were killed by the Guardia that he is not a coward, he is very Gieling, himself a resident of Civil and who, towards the film’s brave.” Frigiliana, discovered the story of conclusion, confronts the former Lomas, he knew immediately that it Falangist mayor, a self-proclaimed The director adds: “I didn’t want to should be retold on film. The strange fascista. We are kept guessing as to make a political film, I didn’t want thing was that he had lived in the what will ensue, whether a process to make a leftist statement. I just village a full decade before he of truth and reconciliation or wanted to show how people deal even heard the story. An English a violent reawakening of enmities. with the past and how they survive.”

The Death of Antonio Sánchez Lomas Directors & script: Ramón & Salvador Gieling Production: Pieter van Huystee Film Sales: Films Transit – Jan Rofekamp

8 9 Competition for Dutch Documentary A tale told in archive They Call Me Babu Sandra Beerends

Sandra Beerends eventual fight for independence. Beerends with fantastic opport­ In between events, Alima cruises unities to flesh out her heroine. the world with her Dutch family, visiting sites such as the Pyramids During her research Beerends found and suffering stormy seas in the the same Tilly, now in her 90s, who, company of her beloved charge, the despite suffering from dementia, infant Jantje. For a year she enjoys retained a clear childhood memory an educative period in a civilised of her own Indonesian nanny. and respectful (as well as cold and “She told me how she was a very windy) Holland, an interval of peace intelligent woman and that the Culled from archive footage, that Alima describes as “a brittle moment she arrived here in The Sandra Beerends’ drama-doc layer covering suppressed unrest.” Netherlands she became friendly They Call Me Babu is the fictional­ with the Dutch servant, but that ised story of an Indonesian All the time we are invited to when the family returned to nanny, told over the course of immerse ourselves in black and Indonesia just a year later she was a tumultuous 20th Century. white images of astonishing beauty able to read and write in Dutch,” the and drama that detail the joy of director says. “She was so eager to The word ‘babu’ (a term which is family life, the minutae of learn everything around her. It was these days considered offensive) Indonesian cultural and the bleak­ only one year of education but she refers specifically to the Indonesian ness of war and death. When Alima really wanted to be educated.” nannies who worked for Dutch and experiences snow for the first time European families in the former she tells how she was “enchanted by Beerends was determined therefore East Indies. In her beautiful and the magical white sand”. Later in to reflect the desire she recognised lyrical film, Beerends artificially, the film, a small gang of Indonesian in the nannies to build a new but movingly, constructs the life of labourers play in an equally magical Indonesia, especially for the next one such nanny. The film is the blizzard of fluffy seeds from the generation of girls. After she placed result of years of research and kapok trees, used to stuff pillows a newspaper ad asking for stories, interviews, and for which Beerends and mattresses. Active volcanoes she heard of one nanny who fled an had to trawl through footage from on the island continually remind us arranged marriage to work with a some of the world’s leading of the volatile nature of the world European family, even endangering archives, including Eye and Beeld Alima inhabits. her life to visit them in the Japanese en Geluid. It is further supported by concentration camp on the island. the Netherlands Film Fund and the Director Beerends, the daughter of Production Incentive. an Indonesian mother and a Dutch “After the war, the family asked her father, stresses how there was no to come back to Europe but she Nanny Alima (unnamed in the film) fixed script during the production refused. She said ‘My country needs narrates the story of her life to her and that the footage she found me. You taught me a lot and you dead mother. Hers is an existence could just as easily determine the gave me opportunities, but my task The archive of one that spans a period of profound trajectory of the narrative. The is to show girls that they also have family continually turmoil, from colonial life under archive provided by one family, the right to go to school, and I want put their nanny in the Dutch to occupation by the whose younger members are infant to strive for that’. Forty years later the the forefront Japanese during WW2, the bloody Jantje and the toddler Tilly, family discovered that the nanny had attempts to re-establish Belanda continually put their nanny in the worked her whole life at the Ministry (Dutch) control, to Indonesia’s forefront, therefore furnishing of Education to fulfil her promise.”

They Call Me Babu Director & script: Sandra Beerends Production: Pieter van Huystee Film Sales: Films Transit - Jan Rofekamp

10 11 Competition for Dutch Documentary All Against All Luuk Bouwman When right is wrong

the country. Meanwhile, followers “I first became interested because of the NSB would claim that they I saw some newspapers from the had only been interested in the 1930s. They were talking about the The director suggests party’s economic programme, not city I grew up in, Oss in the south of that a lot of slogans its noxious ideology. “The general The Netherlands. There was a crime used by the Dutch impression I had (when growing wave in the 1930s and the fascist fascists in the 20s and up) was that the Germans were parties made a big deal out of it,” evil and the Dutch were he remembers of the origins of the

30s will sound very Luuk Bouwman © Dick Verdult collaborators without backbone,” project. He points out that the familiar today says Bouwman. fascists presented a romantic vision When he was researching his of The Netherlands (all “landscapes new documentary All Against However, in his research for the and windmills”) but at the same All, which he describes as “an documentary, the director time they were fomenting political archaeology of fascism in The discovered “native Dutch fascism” and racial hatred. Netherlands,” Luuk Bouwman had taken root long before Mussert was startled to discover that threw in his lot with the Third All Against All is supported by the there were around 100 Dutch Reich. “Although the fascist party Netherlands Film Fund and will be fascist parties in the 1920s and presented itself as ultra- released in Holland by Cinema 1930s. Some were tiny, others nationalistic, there were many Delicatessen in April 2020. were somewhat larger. international contacts between fascist movements early on. At art school, where Bouwmann Bouwman describes his film as Mussert met with Mussolini, Hitler studied film, he became part of uncovering an “unknown history.” and Oswald Mosley in the 1930s. underground techno-punk band The Dutch like to think the There were fascist movements in Aux Raus. “It was just about having Germans were the Nazis, not them. all European countries. Leaders also fun at first but we got a record deal. They all know the country was met at congresses to discuss We recorded our first album in occupied by Hitler’s forces during a definition of fascism – something Mexico and for a couple of years WW2 but they are less aware of the they didn’t succeed in by the way.” were able to play all over the world.” growth of right-wing fascism in Success came easily, but after a their own backyard. “I was mostly In the film, Bouwman steers clear decade or so in the music business, driven by curiosity – about the rise of making glib comparisons with Bouwman had had enough. He was of fascism in The Netherlands. present day fascists in The Nether­ already a prolific vlogger and had Who were these many small Dutch lands. He intended his film to begun to work in documentary. führers? Also, psychologically, what present a historical overview. kind of person thinks he should rule “My subject is really about the 1920s Now he is an established director The Netherlands as a dictator, and and 1930s.” Even so, the parallels with several new documentaries in what happened to them after their with contemporary society are self- the pipeline. One, Gerlach, which he failed attempts?” he reflects. evident. The director suggests that is co-directing with Aliona van der a lot of slogans used by the Dutch Horst, is about an arable farmer In his trial after the war, Anton fascists in the 20s and 30s will trying to stay afloat in changing Mussert (leader of the National sound very familiar today. Then, as times. Another is about psychosis. Socialist Movement in The now, populist politicians were After fascism, the director jokes, Netherlands, NSB) tried to argue he railing against immigrants, big that’s a natural subject to turn to was doing what he thought best for capital and the liberal elite. next. Geoffrey Macnab

All Against All Director & script: Luuk Bouwman Production: Doc.Eye Film - Joost Verheij

12 13 Competition for Dutch Documentary King of the Cruise Sophie Dros Cruise control Behind The Blood Loretta van der Horst

Geoffrey Macnab talks to two dynamic young directors selected for Dutch Competition at IDFA 2019

Sophie Dros

managed to contact the Baron and required director Dros to spend had met him in Edinburgh. He had weeks in an environment that, in Not so long ago, filmmaker Sophie agreed to be the main character in normal circumstances, she would Dros was in the Eye building in the film. have been desperate to avoid. Amsterdam, watching boats on the “I am quite like the Baron in a way. a documentary in her dissertation. hitman, Matathan. And via other river pass by. Among them, she Dros found the Baron “very demand­ I probably have a really big need “I was there for two months writing acquaintances she also got in touch noticed a cruise ship. Dros first ing.” She didn’t always agree with to be seen and to matter. a thesis and interviewing people for with a third protagonist – the TV thought to herself what a hellish his right wing and sexist views. Otherwise, I don’t know why the documentary, which helped news reporter Orlin Castro, who had experience it would be as “For me, as a feminist film­maker, I would have forced myself to make build my network,” the director become inured to violence after a passenger on such a trip, in such that is sometimes difficult to hear this film.” remembers of her first trip to the covering murder after murder. a claustrophobic setting. Her next and see.” However, she also realised town. She had heard about a pastor, thought was that this could be an he was a fascinating character. The Baron has already seen the Daniel Pacheco, who was trying to The locals were surprised when ideal setting for a film. “I don’t think you have to be friends documentary. He had very mixed Loretta van der Horst “make peace” in one of the city’s she told them about her own to make a film,” she reflects. feelings about it. “He told me that most dangerous neighbourhoods. Honduran roots. “They thought it “For me, a documentary always I made [look] him way more lonely Making her new documentary The moment she met him, she knew was cool,” she says. “They liked it, starts with something I don’t The Baron could easily have been than he really is. I told him Behind The Blood required Loretta Pacheco was “special” and wanted they embraced it.” She had left the understand. I just want to dive in made into a figure of fun but Dros I portrayed him quite well. I think van der Horst to return to to tell his story. She wasn’t able to country as a very young child and and find out if it is something I can was determined to treat him with he expected something else, a big, Honduras, the country of her stay for long but kept in touch with feels herself to be Dutch but felt learn to understand,” Dros (whose respect and to “protect” him. bombastic show around him. birth. The film was shot in San the pastor by phone after she left. a natural empathy with her earlier film My Silicon Love was “I wanted to make a film about Instead, he found the film quite Pedro Sula, a city where life is very Eventually, she was able to return. Honduran hosts. about men and love dolls) says of visibility, about a person who really slow and boring and that it made cheap. With soldiers, cops and drug This time, she brought a the instinct that led her to set off on feels the need to be seen and to tell him look like a lonely old man. ” dealers all on the streets, levels of cameraman with her. Van Der Horst spent 60 days filming a cruise around the Caribbean, one people about who he is.” violence are very high. in the city. She and her editors then that she anticipated she would hate. Whatever his reservations, Reisinger As long as she was with the Pastor, spent several months editing the Reisinger seems to be the soul still plans to attend the IDFA The project has its origins in a the director felt safe. He was widely project. Pacheco was shown an early A fellow passenger was Baron of the party but she detected premiere. “His words were that he is research trip to Honduras that Van respected, knew everybody and version. With continued violence in Ronald Busch Reisinger of a loneliness and insecurity under­ a professional so he will show up. der Horst made as part of a post­ could intercede if there were Honduras, and an unending exodus Inneryne, a flamboyant figure who neath his bluster. No matter what his opinion is about graduate degree in Conflict Studies problems. “As soon as he wasn’t of migrants heading to the USA, claimed to be part of the Scottish the film, the most important thing and Human Rights. Her teachers there, that was when things were she hopes the film will give the aristocracy. Through production Making King of the Cruise (IDFA (for him) is that the film is going to allowed her to combine written a little more tricky.” Through Pastor a bigger platform for positive company HALAL, she had already Competition for Dutch Documentary) be seen.” material with the development of Pacheco, she met a troubled change in his community.

King of the Cruise Director & script: Sophie Dros Production: Behind the Blood Director & script: Loretta van der Horst Halal Docs - Olivia Sophie van Leeuwen Sales: Dogwoof Production: Conijn Film - Wout Conijn Sales: Kew Media

14 15 Competition for Dutch Documentary Sidik and the Leopard Reber Dosky Looking, hoping, waiting

Dosky met Sidik for the first time in At the time of writing, Dosky was 2013 at the Dohuk Int’l Film Festival yet to determine whether his in Iraq where Sidik had come to protagonist would be able to attend Months waiting and see Dosky’s short filmThe Call. the IDFA premiere on 24th observing, hoping to They got to know each other. Dosky November. Sidik had been invited catch a glimpse of an accompanied Sidik on his trips to but the director was waiting to see if elusive leopard the mountains and gradually began he would receive the papers he to develop the idea for the film. needs from the Dutch authorities. Reber Dosky In either case, Sidik has already Sidik shows enormous patience as seen the film. He enjoyed it and Geoffrey Macnab talks to Reber he waits for the leopard to appear. joked, “now the tourists will come!” Dosky, whose Sidik and the The appearance of such a rare Leopard world premieres in IDFA animal would mean that the area Sidik and the Leopard will be released Dutch Competition. could be designated as a nature in The Netherlands in January 2020. reserve. If that happened, Sidik Before that, Dosky will screen it in Reber Dosky is a Dutch-based hoped, perhaps the bombing would Kurdistan in December. It was filmmaker who studied directing at stop. It would be a sign of peace. produced by well-known Dutch the Dutch Film and TV Academy in filmmaker Jos De Putter, who first Amsterdam. He was born in In his painstaking dedication to his collaborated with Dosky on The Kurdistan in 1975, came to The task, Sidik resembles Haron, the Sniper of Kobani and went on to Netherlands in 1998 and retains his protagonist in Dosky’s 2015 film work with him on his 2016 film Kurdish roots. He is therefore well The Sniper of Kobani. The pointed Radio Kobani. placed to tell stories which explore difference is that he is waiting for an recent Kurdish history and politics. animal he longs to see while Haron Dosky is already preparing his next Unlike so many western document­ is hiding in a ruined city, looking for documentary, one that promises to ary makers who work in the region, the opportunity to shoot and kill be darker in tone. This will be an he has an insider’s perspective. ISIS fighters. “Sidik is free and expanded, follow-up version of his happy with his work. Haron was on recent short documentary Yezidi Mention Iraqi Kurdistan to duty and not happy to kill,” is how Girls. “It’s about the re-integration westerners and the images most Dosky sums up the fundamental of girls who have been enslaved by likely to spring to mind are of war difference between the two loners. ISIS and have to re-integrate in their and bloodshed. In Dosky’s new own communities,” the director film Sidik and the Leopard, For Dosky, this was a less stressful explains. The girls are deeply supported by the Netherlands Film film to shoot than The Sniper Of scarred by their experiences. Fund and Production Incentive, he Kobani. However, it still had its provides a radically different and challenges. “Turkey’s army bombed The director hatched the idea for the much more uplifting portrayal of the mountains during the shootings. film when he was shooting Sidik and the area. His main character Sidik Therefore, we could not shoot every­ the Leopard. “I was in Kurdistan is determined to protect nature. where, and only during the daytime”. when I heard that three girls had He spends months waiting and Dosky was in the mountains managed to escape from ISIS days observing, hoping to catch a during all four seasons, making five before I came. I had my camera with glimpse of a leopard, an elusive separate trips. During winter, it me and so I decided to make a short animal which hasn’t been seen in sometimes became so cold and wet movie about them.” Now, that short many years. that his camera equipment froze. film is spawning a feature.

Sidik and the Leopard Director & script: Reber Dosky Production: Dieptescherpte - Jos de Putter Sales: Journeyman Pictures

16 17 Competition for Dutch Documentary Café and society Angels On Diamond Street Petr Lom

Petr Lom Their new film is set in The Verité, you have to wait around until Advocate Cafe, a soup kitchen at you get something. On top of that, “We always make films the Church of the Advocate in Carmela’s situation was so about injustice… that Philadelphia, celebrated for emotionally difficult, we had to be makes our hearts beat” opening its doors to immigrants quite patient when we were filming. regardless of their status. The family is under tremendous stress.” Ask him how they found their

© Dana Lixenberg subject and Lom replies: “we always As Lom had learned from his make films about injustice. That is previous documentaries, subjects Petr Lom, whose new feature what we like to do, that makes our will open up “if they feel you are documentary Angels On hearts beat.” They heard about the totally committed.” Diamond Street world-premieres cafe from a friend Lom had known in IDFA Competition for Dutch since graduate school at Harvard The director found Barbara Easley- Documentary, once had a and who is now a Professor at La Cox to be an intriguing and blossoming career as an aca­ Salle University in Philadelphia. inspirational character. “She is demic, writes Geoffrey Macnab. “He told us about the New Sanctuary a person who evolved. She looks movement six years ago,” he recalls back at her youth as youth,” he says “I really enjoyed studying and of churches which make it a point of of her radical background. “She is I loved philosophy and books but principle that their doors are open a wise soul, a very wise soul.” She is I didn’t really enjoy being a to everyone. The friend then told also selfless, always looking to help professional academic,” he recalls them two years ago about Carmela others. She had been married to of the circumstances in which he Hernandez, the undocumented Black Panther leader, Donald Cox, quit university to pursue a career as mother living in the basement of but now she works as an a director. “The publishing for your the church with her four children. anonymous volunteer in a soup career, I just found that stultifying. kitchen. Lom and Van Egeraat are That wasn’t for me,” he says of the At first, Lom and Van Egeraat had planning to hold a screening of pressure professional academics planned to make a short but then Angels On Diamond Street in the are put under to write books. they realised that this was a story Church in Philadelphia. (Cinema which warranted being told at much Delicatessen is handling the release Lom was “scared shitless” when he greater length. They had met the in The Netherlands.) embarked on his documentary people running the cafe, including career. His friends all told him he the charismatic ex-Black Panther, The director is a confirmed admirer would never make a living. However, Barbara Easley-Cox, and saw of the work of DA Pennebaker, his first film, Bride Kidnapping in the scope for expanding the The Maysles brothers, Fred Kyrgyzstan (2004), which screened documentary. They ended up Wiseman et al. “But I see Cinema at IDFA and revealed that 40% of shooting over 100 hours which have Verité as a form of poetry basically. marriages in rural Kyrgyzstan been boiled down to 88 minutes. You look for something to happen happen through kidnapping, was an in front of the camera, beautiful and immediate success. He has been “The film is location-based and so marvellous…you’re looking for working steadily ever since then we don’t really leave the church something that points to the deeper and, for the past nine years, with his except for one or two occasions,” truth of what people are like,” is wife, filmmaker and producer the director explains. “And then, how he reflects on the magic he tries Corinne van Egeraat. because we like to do Cinema to capture in his work.

Angels on Diamond Street Director: Petr Lom Scriptwriters: Petr Lom and Corinne van Egeraat Production: ZIN Documentaire - Corinne van Egeraat Co-production: Ten Thousand Images (Norway)

18 19 Competitions for Mid-Length and Dutch Documentary Carrousel Marina Meijer Not so merry go round

The film was originally called C’est they had encountered during their les autres, a title drawing on Sartre troubled young lives, she wasn’t and suggesting “hell is other judging them. people.” Carrousel has a different but equally bleak connotation. This may be a story set in a very This, the director explains, is a film confined space but the faces of the “without beginning or end.” There boys and the teachers, often shown is no resolution for the youngsters in confrontational close up, are “the Marina Meijer as they try to adapt so that they can emotional landscape” of the film. return to outside society. “As a viewer, you can’t look away. In Carrousel, Marina Meijer You have to look at the boys. That is chronicles the lives of several “The boys are already so defined by exactly what I want,” Meijer says of vulnerable young men in their past and present that the her in your face shooting style. a transformation centre in chance of change and adaptation Rotterdam, writes Geoffrey might be quite small,” Meijer Meijer’s hope is that as many of the Macnab. explains. “We expect the boys to boys as possible will be able to change, but if structural problems attend the IDFA premiere. She has “They are often seen as the bad like social inequality, poverty and already shown the film to all of boys, the problematic youth, with prejudices don’t change in our them individually. “It was a long the ADHD (attention deficit society, this carrousel (sic) will process. I think for three months, hyperactivity disorder) label,” the always continue.” She didn’t want to director notes of her troubled make a film which would reassure subjects who are very conscious of audiences everything was going to “As a viewer, you can’t the way the outside world regards be fine when she knew that her look away. You have to them. As filmmaker Marina Meijer subjects’ circumstances were grim. look at the boys” spent more time with them, she realised these young men were not It has taken the director three years only “trapped” in a society which to complete the film. First, she had I have been calling them and going marginalises them but that they were to persuade the authorities to allow to their mothers’ houses…they’re also “locked down in their own her to shoot in the centre. The boys with a lot on their mind. It is feelings and thoughts and patterns. supervisors were very protective of not easy to make an appointment I felt they really wanted to break out.” the boys (most of them aged around with them.” When she did track 18 and on the cusp between youth them down, they were proud that The director noticed the pain­ and adulthood) but eventually someone had chronicled their lives staking way in which the teachers in allowed her to do research and then in such an honest and unflinching “The boys are already the centre tried to engage with the to film. In 2017, she won the Karen way. so defined by their past boys. “A lot of them, for the first de Bok Talent Award, worth and present that the time in their lives, had the feeling €25,000, to develop the project. “I want to create a mirror for chance of change and they were being looked at by the society,” Meijer declares of her teachers for who they are.” For once, Meijer also had to win the trust of intentions. “I want the viewer to feel adaptation might be she points out, the boys weren’t the boys in the centre. One told her unable to look away…the question quite small” being instantly judged because of that he felt “calm” in her presence. should not only be what the boys are where they came from or what they They could tell that, unlike so many doing now, but what we ourselves had done in the past. other adults and authority figures are going to do.”

Carrousel Director & script: Marina Meijer Production: Basalt Film - Simone van den Broek

20 21 IDFA Creative Director The doc stops here Orwa Nyrabia

In 2019 64% of IDFA competition “To me, positioning, respect, are making “serious efforts” to titles are made by women and visibility and prominence are as redress the geo-imbalance. the festival will screen more important as numbers. Europe and “Berlinale is a good example, as films from Africa, Latin America North America will always, or for the well as TIFF. Their worldview in and Asia than ever before. foreseeable future, keep the largest both documentary and fiction film But things are only just getting share,” he comments. “IDFA is big is wide and more inclusive than started, Creative Director Orwa enough, in terms of its offers, most.” Nyrabia tells Nick Cunningham. screenings, audience, Unsurprisingly, given the location Yes, Nyrabia admits, the overall of IDFA, selections from The percentage of films made by women “To me, positioning, Netherlands are numerous across at IDFA stands at 47%, with sections respect, visibility and all festival sections, and this edition such as Masters still “relatively prominence are as of SeeNL highlights much of what is stuck in the past, with many more important as numbers” on offer from a Dutch perspective. male filmmakers than female being How therefore does Nyrabia assess recognised or confirmed by the Holland’s position within, and offer industry as ‘masters’.” But the communication and outreach, to to, the international doc sector? overall figures are nevertheless accommodate for more from under- highly impressive and confirm the represented regions, without “Dutch documentary filmmaking IDFA chief’s desire to drag the film compromising the presence and the comes from a long and strong industry kicking and screaming into visibility of the others.” tradition. Great masters like Joris the 21st Century. “We just started, Ivens, Johan van der Keuken and and we will continue,” he under­ Nyrabia believes that the Heddy Honigmann influenced lines. “It is the reality of what’s out documentary industry in general is many and reserved their rightful there today. The movement of delivering on gender parity and that places in documentary cinema women filmmakers over the past most sectors have made it a high history. The Dutch film output in few years is not just a theoretical priority as they oversee operations. 2019 includes a few great films, and movement. So much is being done Geographical diversity needs root very ambitious and imaginative new and the landscape is changing.” and branch re-appraisal however. media works too. It also offers a few “The industry is not finding its commercially-viable titles… films He describes the goal of way around fair geographical with the potential of successful geographical diversity as a strategic representation yet, because it has theatrical release and which would challenge, but one they are on track been established on the opposite make great TV internationally.” to meet, with many more films not [principle]. It is a matter of only “about” the world but also accepting that the past was unjust “As an international co-production “from and by” the world. What’s for many populations and film­ country, The Netherlands is making more, he suggests, IDFA is a large makers out there, and that change big strides recently. We can see how and elastic festival that can and will is necessary… that even when it the efforts of IDFA, IFFR and mainly accommodate the growth in output feels like losing some privileges, the Netherlands Film Fund are from the furthest regions of the it is in everybody’s benefit on the already showing results. There’s planet with little effect on the long run.” a serious will, The Netherlands integrity of films selected from the can offer so much as a partner, established European and North He does however highlight other and this is already happening,”

American industries. major international festivals that he concludes. © Roger Cremers

22 23 IDFA Masters The joy of Six My Rembrandt Oeke Hoogendijk

(and identically-named) ancestor was layers of paint from a painting to painted by Rembrandt. The modern- (potentially) reveal a Rembrandt day Six is determined to discover masterpiece beneath. a new Rembrandt painting himself (something which hasn’t happened Having directed The New Rijksmuseum­ in nearly 50 years), and remarkably (2014), about the reno­vation of the seems to discover two in as many Amsterdam museum, Hoogendijk years. The other story tells of Paris- acknowledges the assistance she

Oeke Hoogendijk © Annaleen Louwes based Baron Eric de Rothschild who received in making her latest film. owns two Rembrandts that depict “You don’t always get to visit the My Rembrandt offers a mosaic Dutch trader Marten Soolmans and likes of Baron de Roth­schild, but of delightful and gripping stories his wife, and which are saucily when you have the director of the about the desire to own works positioned either side of a lavish Rijks­museum writing letters to all of by the Dutch Master. bed and stained by years of cigarette these people, then that helps a lot.” and cigar smoke. When the baron To paraphrase English novelist L.P. decides to sell the works, a monu­ She also confirms that she becomes Hartley, the art world is “a foreign mental face-off ensues between the very attached to her subjects and was country, they do things differently renowned Louvre and Rijksmuseum, thankful that a fascinating charac­ter there.” It is rarefied, it is monied and a dispute which can only be resolved such as Jan Six was prepared to allow it oozes both elegance and charm. at highest diplomatic level. her to film delicate meetings with It evokes enormous passions, and buyers and colleagues. Nevertheless, the levels of deference born towards An altogether gentler tale is of the she kept her camera rolling as Six’s its benefactors generally reach strato­ Scottish duke who mulls over where world seems to collapse around him spheric heights. Oeke Hoogendijk’s to place his beautiful and much- towards the film’s conclusion. incisive and highly entertaining loved Rembrandt which depicts documentary, supported by the a reading woman. Meanwhile Mr “For me as a filmmaker he is fabu­ Netherlands Production Incentive, and Mrs de Mol van Otterloo have lous. You are not always sure what is also populated by people bearing placed their trust in Six the Younger he is saying or what he is doing. very portentous names and titles, and watch in dismay as his name is My original intention was to make a such as Eijk de Mol van Otterloo­ sullied across the media for allegedly plot-directed film about the world of (an art collector) and The 10th Duke breaking a pledge with another the Old Masters, particularly the of Buccleuch (a Scottish landowner­ dealer in the purchase of one of the Rembrandts. But when I met Six, he overseeing 280,000 acres). newly-discovered Rembrandts. was a godsend and the centrepiece of everything, and also the descendant But you don’t have to scratch too We also hear US businessman and of a man who was a close friend of deeply beneath the surface to discover philanthropist Thomas Kaplan tell Rembrandt himself.” levels of deception and mis­trust as how he liberates Rembrandts from the trade in art seems to take on the the “private domain into the public “But ultimately I am not a judge,” she Six was a godsend same political and diplomatic domain”, using “Old Masters to stresses of his subsequent troubles, and the centrepiece significance as the trade in arms. further the cause… of humanism.” “and I wanted to stay out of the con­ of everything The cast is completed by a con­ flict as much as I could. In a film it At the heart of the story are two tales. flicted Rembrandt expert and is always more interesting when The first is of quasi-aristocratic Jan a restorer who, over the course of you leave judgement up to the Six, an art dealer whose 17th Century four years, is painfully removing audience.” Nick Cunningham

My Rembrandt Director & script: Oeke Hoogendijk Production: Discours Film - Oeke Hoogendijk, Frank van den Engel Sales: Cinephil

24 25 IDFA Masters Once the Dust Settles John Appel Après le déluge

John Appel John Appel. In all three tales, his status in the eyes of his adoring subjects are both guide and victim. son, in the face of his inability to The film is not designed as a three- remove the terrorists who occupy act piece, rather as a continuous his home village, and who have reflection on the “film’s core theme chopped down his 200 olive trees of the different ways people deal for firewood. A woman, living with with tragedy”. her mother among the ruins, is barely able to keep her emotions in

© Tamar Appel In Amatrice we meet a local priest check as she under­takes her first (unnamed) whose way of dealing tour in eight years through the once John Appel’s latest feature doc, with the disaster is either to make magnificent and vast Aleppo bazaar. world-premiering in IDFA light of it (such as when he visits the Masters and supported by the empty husk that used to be his “For me Aleppo was very special. Netherlands Film Fund, revisits house) or to convince his Officially there is no programme to three scenes of mayhem to parishioners that the earthquake is rebuild the old city. Assad [whose assess how tourism can work as part of a greater plan. We don’t hear image in picture and on poster a balm, or as an irritant. Nick the villagers’ response to this pervades the film] is not planning Cunningham reports. assertion but Appel suggests that if the rebuilding of the destroyed no earthbound agency is to blame, cities, he is planning on remaining Before the earthquake of August then the disaster may be easier to in power. People do it by them­ 2016 the town of Amatrice in central bear on the part of its victims. selves,” underlines Appel. “So the Italy was exquisite and a haven for Religion may not supply the strength of those people without tourists. These days, rubber-necked answers, but it attempts to offer any support to do this tells you a lot vacationists are not welcome, and comfort, which seems at times to about how motivated they are to signs reading “no selfies’ are be welcome. keep on going, not to forget but to commonplace. On the other hand overcome.” the infamous Chernobyl, in Our guide in Chernobyl is Aleksej, Ukraine, welcomes tourists by the a former operator in Reactor Unit 4 The great irony of course is that thousands every year. Meanwhile in where 19 of his colleagues and seven stone ruins beneath vibrant skies Aleppo, once considered the most firefighters were killed during the make for astonishingly graphic beautiful city in Syria, individuals disaster of 1986. Quietly spoken and cinematography. “Yes, the beauty are rebuilding their lives, and reflective, he describes a sense of of this destruction, it is a bit discovering hope, after eight years euphoria and a body that felt like cynical of course,” comments the of war by venturing onto the streets bronze as radiation sickness began director. “We arrive with our to guide tourists around its blasted to affect him. These days he is cameras and film these beautiful remains. dedicated to telling the truth about early morning or late afternoon the massive inadequacies of the shots of destroyed areas, but since “For me Aleppo “I have been interested in guided reactor prior to the disaster, and I feel that life goes on in the places was very special” tours for many years. I am always how it was always a disaster waiting where we were filming, I didn’t interested in the relation between to happen. feel that I was doing something disaster and how people talk about I shouldn’t do. But it is strange to it whether as a guide or as a victim The stories of the Aleppo guides are look for the right angle, the right of the disaster. For me this is extremely moving. One is a school­ light and the perfect moment to interesting,” stresses director teacher who tries to retain heroic shoot these scenes.”

Once the Dust Settles Director & script: John Appel Production: Cobos Films Sales: Rise and Shine

26 27 IDFA Masters and Competition for Dutch Documentary MS Suzanne Raes Diminishing powers Lost In Memories Ruud Lenssen

Two new Dutch films at IDFA Ruud Lenssen assess the effects of crippling diseases from both scientific and personal perspectives. Geoffrey Macnab reports.

Suzanne Raes

Another very intimate film touching on life changing illness is Ruud Lenssen’s Lost In Memories, premiering in IDFA Competition Lost In Memories for Dutch Documentary, in which the director chronicles his father’s made sense for the family to keep her and her family. He explained to Patients need science and science dementia and its effects on his the land. “In the beginning, his her that he was trying to show what need patients – but their interests family. paradise, as we called it, was caretakers experience when dealing aren’t always the same. That is one MS a comfort but it turned out to be with loved ones who have dementia. truth foregrounded in poignant “When my father got diagnosed, much more of an obstacle for him.” After a while, she stopped noticing fashion in Suzanne Raes’ new match.” When the director met shifting relationship between her in the beginning, I didn’t think the camera. feature documentary MS, a world Geurts, the scientist told her, two protagonists. She had realised about filming it or turning it into There were uncomfortable premiere in IDFA Masters. The film “I always need patients to find new that science cannot offer her a cure. a documentary. It was only moments. Lenssen found himself The director finds his own film looks at Multiple Sclerosis from two perspectives for my research.” Geurts’ attention wasn’t just on her afterwards, when I saw the impact looking through the camera as his difficult to watch and admits it will points of view – the woman who has She told him she would find him as an individual. He was thinking of dementia on our family, father threatened his mother and be “quite scary” to show it at IDFA the wasting disease and a top a patient he could talk to “and ask about the long term and the way in especially on my mum, that was became increasingly aggressive. in front of a big audience. “I think scientist who knows everything anything you like to…and vice which her case might provide clues when I started thinking about it,” Strangely, though, when the camera I can handle it but I am worried there is to know about it apart from versa.” that would help the next generation. Lenssen explains. was running, Lenssen was a quiet about my mum. She is just a regular how to provide a cure. and unobtrusive presence who had lady from a small village and she There are 17,000 thousand people For the director, there were ethical Most films about dementia are a calming effect on his father. is going to have so many people Raes was originally approached to with MS in Holland but everyone challenges in telling Lineke’s story. focused on the person suffering “The relationship between me and looking at her…” make a science documentary. seems to know someone who has “I tried to be as transparent as from the disease. The director my father only got better by filming. At first, she was hesitant. “I said the disease. Eventually, she tracked possible,” Raes says of the way she wanted to shift the focus and to I spent so much time with him. Jac is now in a care home. When the I am not interested in seeing people down Lineke van den Boezem, an approached the subject. “For me, consider how others, especially the You have to be patient when you son visits him, he encounters behind their computers or MS sufferer and also a successful it was important that they knew caretakers, are affected. As his are filming, you have to be “a total different person” from the microscopes. Science doesn’t screenwriter for Dutch television I didn’t choose sides. Both their father’s condition worsened, his observant.” man he remembers. He says it is happen in front of the camera.” drama. perspectives are really important. mother became more and more hard to finish the documentary. Patients should learn from science isolated. Lenssen made the documentary “I am a little worried because letting Jeroen Geurts is among the most Geurts was fascinated by Lineke and – and science should tell their story entirely on his own. It would have go of the film also means letting go famous scientists in The at their first meeting they had an in the right way. And scientists really Lenssen’s father Jac had worked felt very strange to have been working of my father a bit. I am a bit afraid of Netherlands. Raes decided he would immediate rapport. “A year later, need to listen to patients. That is my throughout his life in the fields. on such an intimate and personal that. This project was so beautiful be a strong subject but wanted to Lineke was in another state of mind. most important ethical perspective, He loved his meadow, his poultry project with outsiders. His mother for me personally. I am a little find a foil for him, a patient who was She said (to Geurts) you cannot help that there should be a bridge and his ponies. However, as his was initially wary about the film and worried about finding a [future] roughly the same age and “a good me,” the director notes of the between these two worlds.” condition worsened, it no longer what other people might think of subject that can compete…”

MS Director & script: Suzanne Raes Lost in Memories Director & script: Ruud Lenssen Production: Docmakers Production: Ruud Lenssen Documentaries

28 29 First Appearance, Student Competition and Paradocs Dutch Selections Dutch quartet Hours of Glass Michiel van Bakel

Four more important Dutch Two Dutch works are selected for documentary projects are Paradocs. In the 7-minute time- selected for IDFA within First lapse Hours of Glass the camera Appearance, Student travels from Dark Sky Park in Competition and Paradocs. Denmark to an abandoned observatory in Istanbul, via the First Appearance selection Smog expressionist architecture of the Town (Han Meng), supported by the Einstein Tower near Berlin, to arrive IBF+NFF Co-production scheme, at the cyber unit of a telecom illustrates the massive problems Smog Town Han Meng company. Meanwhile, on the sound­ inherent within the business of track we hear a sonic interpretation environmental protection. makers,” explains co-producer Jia populated country where the of the cosmic electromagnetic Langfang is one of the most air- Scheffer. “I knew about this project stunning economic growth has background radiation released by polluted cities in China, but who at CCDF (Taipei) back in 2016. It been going on for over thirty years.” the Big Bang. This means we’re will pick up the tab when it comes to was two years later in 2018 at DMZ listening to the echo of the ultimate with other eyes. It inspired me to “The funny thing with this eliminating its pollution? The film Docs when I met Vincent Du the “Han’s background as an experienced metaphysical phenomenon, the work further on the concept of kind of experimental set-up focusses on the work of the local producer again. Even though I do not journalist results in sharp obser­va­ beginning of everything. a technologically enhanced vision. and time-lapse is you cannot environmental protection bureau, live in China anymore, I know that tions of characters and events in That is also what astronomers use really visualise it in advance, where deputy chief Li and his my friends and family are dealing the film,” she continues. “Her “For my previous film project Forest when they watch the skies with their at least I can’t. In that assistant Hu are working hard to with smog every day. So for me, it is experience in The Netherlands is Paths I recorded a walk in the instruments and create fascinating sense I do not envisage it address the issue. not only an abstract ‘understanding’­ very positive, together with the woods,” explains director Michiel ‘false colour’ pictures. So I thought beforehand but let the but a burning issue at a personal experienced editor Barbara Hin. van Bakel. “I used a homebuilt it would be a nice twist to point process of making take “As an Asian producer based in level as well. Also I would like to see Editing is an intensive and intimate scanner-camera sensitive to a full-spectrum astro-camera at the control. It is the paradox of Europe, I always keep my eyes open a story that tells the complexity of process between the director, the infrared light to capture the trees observatories themselves.” seeking serendipity.” for strong projects by Asian film­ the smog issue in China, a densely editor and the producer.”

The Ride Ester Polak and Ivar van Bekkum while leaving enough space for got enough to pay for your remained idealistic and fearless the imagination. shopping? No problem, because at and this, at first glance, almost Tonny’s mobile supermarket you naive blind faith made me curious Polak points out that, as visual can always pay next time. But Tonny to learn more about her.” artists working with installations, is in debt, and her days are long and photo, prints and video and other stressful because people all over the “I think at first I wanted to make media, they were not at first aware neighbourhood depend on her. a film about a disappearing that film would be the eventual tradition, the [mobile] shops, and (sole) medium in telling their story. “When I met Tonny I immediately how this reflects changes in our In terms of inspiration, she further knew I wanted to make a portrait society. In Tonny’s case however it’s stresses how the pair’s “work is Last of the Mohicans Max Ploeg of her. She has a very strong exactly the opposite, she’s trying to about movement and land­scape personality and besides that she revive the shop and the values it Ester Polak and Ivar van Bekkum’s charge of the short, low-key and [that] a traumatic experience in In Max Ploeg’s Student Competition had manoeuvred herself into an represents. In the end the film The Ride is about the response to sentences of a couple in a car, the past also had these two selection Last of the Mohicans, impossible situation by starting became more a portrait of Tonny a relived experience. The visual and the sound of an amplified ingredients. For a long time it did Tonny runs a mobile supermarket an outdated business, with no herself and less about traditions or land­scape of impersonal heartbeat driving towards not occur to us that this was the that is dedicated to alleviating the experience, a broken van and a huge society, but some of those initial Google Earth satellite images a dramatic climax. This cinematic case, but once we did we dived into problems of the needy. You haven’t debt,” explains Ploeg. “Still she ideas are still present in the film.” counter­balances the emotional experience carries us along, the topic.” Nick Cunningham

30 31 Kids and Docs Competition Kids rule ok! Dutch selections To the Moon and Back

A whopping six of the 12 films in IDFA’s Kids and Docs competition are from The Netherlands. Nick Cunningham analyses this year’s Dutch touch.

Kids and Docs programmer Marije Veenstra tries to figure out why half of the films in Kids and Docs competition this year are Dutch. Ok, IDFA is based in The Nether­ lands, but the festival is generally acknowledged to be very inter­ national in outlook. What’s more, the submissions from around the world were very impressive in 2019, she underlines.

“But the Dutch films are so strong it is impossible to leave them out. There is a great tradition for documentaries in The Netherlands as well as for kids’ films,” she stresses. Then there is the NPO levels of documentary content for was just five and the younger sibling Fund Kids and Docs workshop, run younger audiences. is scared that her memories of Bo in association with IDFA and will fade with time. The heroine’s Cinekid, whose dedication to the Of the six Dutch films in selection voice-over is accompanied by ink (all of 15 minutes duration) two animations and old videos of the were developed within the 2018 sisters together. “Stories that are closest Kids and Docs Workshop, one was to the experiences of the an EO Docs production (based on “This is a profound film about directors turn out to be one of the articles of the UN grief,” stresses Veenstra. “The film­ the best movies” Convention on Human Rights) and maker reached a very intimate level three were produced by kids doc with Kess. She made interviews of powerhouse Tangerine Tree. the girl and combined them with Foreplay sub-genre output is enviable, and the animations and the old footage. whose output is high in both The workshop films are Sara But it’s also about Kess finding her Anne van Campenhout’s Foreplay the young teenagers, who snigger never see an overview of the whole numerical and qualitative terms. Kolster’s To the Moon and Back and new identity after her loss and the features school lessons about the and make wisecracks, but also classroom,” comments Veenstra. “What you see at the workshop is Foreplay by Anne van Campenhout. ongoing influence of this on her most uncomfortable but also the listen with curiosity. They are often “You also see both their awkward­ a tradition that will continue into new life.” (Kolster was the winner of most exciting subject for kids: sex frank, disarmingly naive and ness and their fascination. The most the future.” Veenstra also points to In To the Moon and Back, the the IDFA DocLab Award for Digital education. The short film shows streetwise at the same time. interesting thing is that it is all the dedication (and investment) of character of Kess keeps the Storytelling­ in 2015 together with what these classes are like at five about curiosity and embarrassment broadcasters KRO-NCRV and EO possessions of her older sister Bo Jan Rothuizen for their Drawing Dutch junior high schools as the “You only see the faces of the and everybody understands this. Docs in maintaining very high very close to her. Bo died when Kess Room.) director focuses on the reactions of children as they are interviewed, you The film is also very funny.”

To the Moon and Back Director & script: Sara Kolster Foreplay Director & script: Anne van Campenhout Production: Production: Basalt Film - Simone van den Broek, Eline van Wees mint film office - JeanMarc van Sambeek & Menna Laura Meijer

32 33 Kids rule ok! Renildo & Vanildo Directors: Eva van Barneveld, #JovannaForFuture Director: Mirjam Marks Production: Continued from page 33 Heleen D’Haens Production: EO Tangerine Tree - Willem Baptist, Nienke Korthof, Merle Bemelmans

director is that it is very easy to find low points in people’s lives to find drama and to be cynical about things. But Eva is totally different, she has a very positive outlook on life. Some people view everything through a positive lens, and she is like that. She is generous, and really wants to find the beauty in things that other people would ordinarily set aside.” JovannaForFuture

“For Holy Moly what attracted me play imaginary games with her In Mirjam Marks’ JovannaForFuture was that it is a story very much sister begins to wane. the eponymous heroine is a climate Renildo & Vanildo connected to her own life. She grew “We thought that the dynamic activist extraordinaire. She doesn’t up in a Catholic village in Limburg, between the two sisters, one having eat meat, and she and her family In the EO Docs film Renildo & In Holy Moly, director Eva Nijsten she believe? Does she feel closer to which is as far away from the big Down’s Syndrome, and set in this live in an “earthship,” where they Vanildo by Eva van Barneveld, two follows eight-year-old Merle, who Jesus? And what did the sacrament cities as imaginable. She lived that one location would make a good generate all the energy they use. twins living in Guinea-Bissau are lives in the predominantly Catholic taste like? story, and stories that are closest to story, one I haven’t seen before,” And like Greta Thunberg, Jovanna always dancing. Their mother died south of The Netherlands, as the experiences of the directors turn comments Baptist. “We found it goes on climate strike every Friday, when they were very young and she pre­pares for her first Holy “We already did a short out to be the best movies.” very attractive that Lennah decided right in the centre of town. their strict father, whom they see Communion, in the process documentary with Eva called How to not to make a portrait, or a film infrequently, can only focus on their learning about the rituals, the be a Saint, about a guy who dresses Lennah Koster’s Our Island about ‘my lovely sister’, but she school grades. But they want to sacraments and the Last Supper. up as his alter ego Santa Claus,” says concerns two sisters; Shanna, really wanted to emphasise the Like Greta Thunberg, dance for him. Will he, or can he, At the end of the process, what does Baptist. “What sets her apart as a a wannabe inventor, and her older feeling of that moment when you Jovanna goes on climate approve of this aspect of their lives? sibling Mirte, who has Down’s realise that you won’t be sisters for strike every Friday Syndrome. They used to have long because you are outgrowing “We also select films for kids to Holy Moly adventures together on their each another. I was very interested broaden their horizon and interest “deserted island” but as Shanna in that process she wanted to tell, Baptist is highly complimentary in other lives,” says Veenstra, “and approaches puberty her desire to a heart-breaking process.” about director Marks who was pre­ with this film you see kids on the viously Head of TV Programming at other side of the world also strugg­ Cinekid and as socially engaged as ling with topics like revealing your Our Island any filmmaker he has encountered. true self to your father or your family, a topic that any child can “She is old school. Right now, modern relate to. But the filmmaker has a filmmakers are very much more into very light touch, that she combines building a narrative on paper and with music and their dancing skills. working things out in advance, So it is also a very cheerful film.” whereas filmmakers like Mirjam go out more on a limb, chase the sur­ Tangerine Tree’s co-owner Willem prise and feel excited when things Baptist outlines the qualities of his aren’t clear, discover­ing things that company’s three films in Kids and they don’t know, taking big risks Docs competition. and going on their gut feelings.”

Holy Moly Director: Eva Nijsten Production: Tangerine Tree - Our Island Director Lennah Koster Production: Tangerine Tree - Willem Baptist, Nienke Korthof, Merle Bemelmans Willem Baptist, Nienke Korthof, Merle Bemelmans

34 35 IDFA Head of Industry Adriek van Nieuwenhuijzen The business of doc

A staggering 3000 industry doc/travel story Club Colombia, and Another of the talks is Filming professionals are expected at Aliona van der Horst’s My Father’s the other – entitlement or privilege. IDFA 2019. Industry boss Adriek Silence, which tells the life story of From the time of Robert Flaherty’s van Nieuwenhuijzen, who has a father put through the shredder of Nanook of the North (1922) onwards, been at the festival since the two dictatorships, Stalin’s and documentary makers have had to start, assesses the extra­ Hitler’s, and the story of a daughter work out just how much license ordinarily varied programme whose life was shaped by his fate. they have to intrude into the lives of with Geoffrey Macnab. their subjects. Are western film­ This year, as always, several industry makers sometimes guilty of being As always, the IDFA Forum, the talks are planned. Surviving as voyeuristic or showing a post­ festival’s co-production and a documentary filmmaker will “dig colonial arrogance in their co-financing market, is at the heart into” a subject that makers are treatment of cultures a long way of matters. Van Nieuwenhuijzen is sometimes shy about addressing, removed from their own? delighted that “a good spread of namely how they make ends meet. countries” are represented, such as Research from many different Back in 2007, when the DocLab Brazil (a João Inada interactive VR sources has highlighted the long programme was launched, VR, AR doc about the lives of three favela hours and precarious economic and web-based storytelling seemed residents, and a Marcelo Gomes’ situation of many filmmakers. like radical new concepts. Now, road-doc focusing on the Lisbon they’re part of a “grown up industry” gentrification process, co-produced Predictably, SVOD looms large even if, as Van Nieuwenhuijzen with Portugal), South Africa throughout the festival. The huge acknowledges, monetising them (Milisuthando reflects on apartheid streamers (Netflix, Amazon and co) remains a challenge. “That is still, from a black South African view­ have upturned traditional financing of course, the big question,” she point) and Afghanistan (Kabul and distribution patterns but IDFA says. “That is why there is a whole Melody, Sahra Mani’s film about will also have a session looking at afternoon at DocLab devoted to female Afghan students risking their the challenges facing smaller discussing all the topics that are so lives for music) sit alongside the European SVOD and TVOD players. relevant to this industry. It is projects from Europe and the US. a combination of project pitches Delegates will also debate the and a summit.” The industry boss is also happy with increasingly knotty subject of the mix of films being presented, “archive and ethics”. As Van Meanwhile, Docs For Sale remains everything from hard hitting current Nieuwenhuijzen points out, it has a core part of IDFA’s industry offering, affairs documentaries to much more become increasingly commonplace welcoming 200+ buyers, sellers, lyrical and offbeat work. There are for archival material to be used in programmers and commissioning plenty of hybrid titles that use very different contexts from what editors to see more than 400 films re-enactments and archive, for the people who shot it originally in this year’s DfS catalogue. example Jorien van Nes’ The Art of intended. In Who owns history? The “VR, AR and web-based Stealing, produced through politics of memory preservation, “The festival was growing under the storytelling are now Amsterdam-based Submarine Films, organised in collaboration with The leadership of Ally Derks and it is part of a grown up which follows four Romanians Netherlands Institute for Sound and still growing under the leadership industry” planning a huge art heist. Vision, the festival is offering a plat­ of Orwa,” Van Nieuwenhuijzen form for filmmakers whose work declares. “The international Other Dutch projects in the Forum focuses on “the questioning and documentary industry is evolving, include Jan Rothuizen’s interactive reinterpreting of the historic image.” and IDFA is evolving with it.”

36 37 IDFA DocLab Shock of the new Dutch Selections

DocLab, IDFA’s home of innova­ ­ “Rozsypne means scattered – this was the tion and experimentation, has best metaphor for this whole project” selected seven new dynamic Dutch projects for its 2019 edition, all presented under the themed banner of Domesticating Reality. Nick Cunningham reports.

Lisa Weeda and Nienke Huitenga

Rozsypne The Russian/English/Dutch- language 12-minute VR project ongoing war. Then at a hackathon stresses. “On the one hand words Rozsypne, by Dutch Nienke in 2016 she met future collaborator can create a world in your head, and Huitenga and Ukrainian-Dutch Lisa Huitenga. “I told her about this television and news visuals can of Weeda, sets out to combine the story and how, as a writer, I really course give you reference of experience of war in Ukraine with love to work with other media. a country that feels far away, but is the downing of Flight MH17, as I have done a photobook and did actually not that far away at all. seen through the eyes of the old some transmedia projects for Kiev is just as far away as Madrid, Fractal Time woman Nina. She lives in the festivals. And Nienke said to me, I discovered when starting this eponymous village where she tries maybe we can make this story project.” themselves with no identifiable The Planetarium will also host to continue her daily life. Very soon a little bit more about perspective.” beginning or end. screenings of Dutch artists she has the wreckage of a plane at Adds Weeda: “When we were doing Metahaven’s Elektra (Competition her doorstep, and hundreds of Huitenga explains how the research on the MH17 crash we “But they have many more interest­ for Digital Story­telling), described bodies are strewn across the Utrecht-based pair embarked on discovered that the nose of the ing properties and one is that you can as “a cinematic merger of landscape. The VR piece is selected a VR together with tech artist plane came down near the village of combine these formulas together animation and live action that for Competition for Immersive Frank Bosma and developer Hans Rozsypne. We also found out that, and create these other worldly reflects on childhood and the Non-Fiction. van Arken. “We are doing it when translated, Rozsypne means places,” explains Horsthuis. “I use embodiment of the past in the independently and it is basically scattered. For us as a team this was Julius Horsthuis fractals as a shortcut to explore worlds present, a visual essay on nodes Weeda explains how, a little while growing on blood, sweat, tears and the best metaphor for this whole that are existing in a mathematical and nets… a parable about the after the airline crash in 2014, she happiness.” project. The plane was scattered Julius Horsthuis’ Fractal Time will reality. I don’t create these worlds, planetary dome in which the film was asked at a party in The Nether­ and the lives of the people in the be projected at Amsterdam’s I find them. And that is basically why will be projected.” lands if her family in Ukraine felt “The reason we chose VR has to war zone in Ukraine are scattered Planetarium. The enormous I use fractals because they are the any guilt concerning the tragedy. do with the fact that we felt there and the lives of the families of the 11-minute 360 degree immersive only way you can do that and actually The combination of live-action and It seemed to her a stupid question should be a different way of victims are scattered. This is what experience is built from fractals, be surprised by what you see, rather animation is accompanied by a as the Ukrainians were experiencing experiencing a piece of history that we are trying to bring together in geometric figures built from than regular CG where you have to new piece by the young Canadian their own tragedy in the form of an has really impacted us,” Huitenga this VR piece.” countless repeated versions of input everything yourself.” composer Kara-Lis Coverdale.

Rozsypne Directors: Nienke Huitenga-Broeren & Lisa Weeda Fractal Time Director: Julius Horsthuis Scriptwriter: Lisa Weeda Production: Studio zzzap - Nienke Production: Julius Horsthuis Fractals Huitenga-Broeren

38 39 IDFA DocLab Shock of the new Dutch Selections Continued from page 39

What They Destroy, We Will Build Again “Out of this mass of Instagram stories and information we wanted to create a spectacle”

“The words of (then-) London mayor Boris Johnson (now UK Prime Minister), ‘what they destroy, we will build again’, pose a binary narrative that presents… inexhaustible, idealistic construction as the solution to inexhaustible, idealistic deconstruction.” Astrid Feringa This installation therefore uses the Astrid Feringa’s 18-minute recreated Arch of Palmyra as a case nerd_funk Look Inside documentary What They Destroy, study “to excavate landscapes of We Will Build Again is selected for power, and to talk about neo- “We decided to collect Instagram is the voice coming through a pair of DocLab Spotlight. In Feringa’s colonial appropriation of heritage stories, which radically and very headphones, inviting you to look website she expresses the raison in an age of digital reconstruction quickly changed digital culture, and around. The house belongs to d’etre behind the work. and contemporary iconoclasm.” what we did was to archive them in a stranger but nevertheless the work nerd_funk,” explains Eslami. “Out of invites you to investigate how we “In May 2015, IS militants Like the 2018 DocLab experience this mass of stories and information can be open to real contact with occupied the ancient Syrian A Dinner With Frankenstein AI, the we wanted to create a spectacle and others. While the voice makes you excavation site of Palmyra and Belgian/Dutch Artificial: Room One make a chapter-based VR experience, feel at home, you also become aware demolished most of its structures, (Ontroerend Goed performance Ali Eslami Mamali Shafahi with each chapter focusing on the Nadja van der Weide of the traces of the unknown including the triumphal arch. company) forms an investigation on phenomena that we found most residents (who, incidentally, didn’t As an ‘act of defiance’ against this the part of an AI, with the co-operation In nerd_funk (Comp for Immersive prominent within this mass of Also in Immersive Non-Fiction clean up before you entered). cultural censorship, the British of flesh and blood beings, into what Non-Fiction and winner of the 2019 archive. We began to categorise the Competition is Nadja van der Experiencing the vulnerability of Institute for Digital Archeology it is like to be human. Indeed, Film Fund DocLab Interactive content – eg human body, parties, Weide’s Common Good: Look Inside, someone’s most intimate space replicated the demolished arch. participants are invited to teach the Grant) Ali Eslami and Mamali nature, all this stuff, and we found winner of a 2018 Netherlands Film creates a tender con­text for In April 2016, the life-size scale AI how to become more human. Shafahi have created both a VR and that we could create more curated Fund DocLab Interactive Grant. reflection. The work also makes you reconstruction was erected at Can the human and the AI develop a virtual identity that we can follow content and experiences inspired query the nature of voyeurism, Trafalgar Square, London, and has an emotional relationship? And to on Instagram for a “curated dose of by the content created within other During the Look Inside presentation and how this particular voyeuristic since travelled to several cities what extent is this machine capable contemporary digital culture.” people’s Instagram activity.” your only guide as you enter a house adventure makes you feel? across the globe.” of evoking human emotions? nerd_funk Directors & script: Ali Eslami, Mamali Shafahi Look Inside Director & script: Nadja What They Destroy, We Will Build Again Director & script: Production: ALLLESSS van der Weide Production: Stichting Astrid Feringa Production: Astrid Feringa De Oefening voor het echte leven

40 41 19 December 2019 to 8 March 2020 Eye Exhibition Eye on Alÿs Francis Alÿs

Piedra, papel y tijeras! Two Bloemheuvel recounts the cities he is also filming children ever-moving hand silhouettes importance of Alÿs’ work, for playing,” is how Bloemheuvel set against a textured surface which he won the Eye Art & Film echoes the genesis of Children’s fill the screen as gleeful Prize 2018. “Almost all projects by Game. laughter churns in the Alÿs begin with a performance, background. often a walk through the city, from Francis Alÿs has been involved which various works then emerge during the installation process and Piedra, papel y tijeras! One may not – from hand-drawn animation will be present at the opening. immediately recognise these words loops and videos to sculptures, Not only will there be a programme but such lyrics and tone are paintings and drawings. His work of films, talks, and events in the unifying and familiar, as if native is both playful and serious, and cinemas, there is also an to one’s psyche. Across languages always rooted in the real world.” accompanying publication. and landscapes, inter­disclipinary Eye Filmmuseum commissioned artist Francis Alÿs began his Previously working as an architect a book with beautiful texts from Children’s Games series in 1999. in his birthplace of Belgium, Alÿs anthropologist and filmmaker The resulting body of work, relocated to Mexico City in 1986, David MacDougall and art curator characterised by a deliberate inter­ switching to art during his later and historian Cuauhtémoc lacing of social study and moving career. Dubbed as ‘architect of Medina, both of whom meditate image, is exhibiting at Eye from on Children’s Games from their 19 December 2019 to 8 March respective fields of interest and 2020. “Almost all projects by authoritative points of view. Alÿs begin with a The playfulness of the Children’s performance, often a From above, the camera fixates. Games series is replicated in its walk through the city, Six children circle five wooden wall-free staging. “We keep it chairs as an upbeat song plays and completely open and we made a from which various stops and repeats the cycle until ground plan where all the screens works then emerge” there is only one last child sitting. are safely arranged. Some screens This game is well known every­ are larger than the other, some are where yet the image culminates in smaller,” explains Associate the absurd,’ his former vocation a specific sentiment, one that Curator of Eye Filmmuseum informs his artistic practice. surfaces after we assess this Marente Bloemheuvel. Alÿs investigates the development colourful portrait of childhood in of place and its sociopolitical contrast to the dry land. Strange Comprising of eighteen videos to dimension, stretching the limit of merry, wonderment. In another date (the most recent is Children’s spatial contour with casual gaiety: video the camera follows two boys Games #18 which features walking along the Green Line toying with their kite while a children playing knucklebones in border that separates Israel and helicopter hovers in the sky. Nepal, filmed in 2017), neither Jordan with a leaking tin of green They only get distracted when the chronological timeline nor paint, pushing an ice block aircraft, emblematic of state geographical relativity are so much through Mexico City until the ice conflict, hinders their play. of an issue, so audiences can melts (it took nine hours), Watching Francis Alÿs narrow his experience Children’s Games at travelling to Afghanistan and Iraq focus serves to widen one’s liberty. Or even sit, as a seating and other countries rendered appreciation of this imaginative place has also been installed. vulnerable by wars. “In all these encounter. Innas Tsuroiya

Children’s Games Francis Alÿs

42 43 Maasja Ooms Director of Punks, selected for IDFA Feature-length Competition 2019