#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 Hoogen dijk’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 shoul ders,” 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.