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Rotterdam’s annual Film Festival opened its door
Updated: February 1 2010, 20:45 CET
ROTTERDAM: Last week the International Rotterdam Film Festival 2010 opened its door to the public. This years edition of this major annual film festival promoting alternative, innovative and non-commercial films. The festival highlights include Bright Future, a platform for filmmakers of the future, presenting the most important, idiosyncratic and adventurous new work by novice makers from all over the world. Among the films presented are ‘At the Very Bottom of Everything’ (Paul Agusta, Indonesia); Elbowroom (Ham Kyoung-Rock, South Korea); Mijn Enschede (Astrid Bussink, The Netherlands); Skeletons (Nick Whitfield, United Kingdom) and A Summer Family (Iwana Masaki, Japan).
The first Rotterdam film festival - then called 'Film International' - was organized in June 1972 under the inspired leadership of Huub Bals. From the beginning, the festival has profiled itself as a promotor of alternative, innovative and non-commercial films, with an emphasis on the Far East and developing countries.
After the Bals’s sudden death in 1988, a fund was initiated and named after him (Hubert Bals Fund), used for supporting filmmakers from developing countries.
The non-competitive character of the festival changed in 1995, when the VPRO Tiger Awards were introduced—three yearly prizes for young filmmakers making their first or second film. The next year, Simon Field, formerly Cinema Director at the London Institute of Contemporary Arts, became director of the festival. In 2004 Sandra den Hamer took over as director of the festival, and since 1 September 2007, the leadership is in the hands of Rutger Wolfson.
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Heaven and Hell at Tollwood Winter Festival Munich
Updated: December 16 2009, 19:15 CET
MUNICH: This month Munich celebrates its Tollwood Winter Festival 2009. This years edition of the annual cultural winter festival with the theme ‘Heaven and Hell’ started just before the first Advent Sunday and offers a Christmas market through December 23 and cultural events up to New Year’s Eve. This years theme is Heaven and Hell, featuring amongst others four theatre productions from Canada, Great Britain, Austria and Russia from opera (Mnozil Brass: Irmingard) to dark circus (The Tiger Lillies Freakshow) right up to clownery (Teatr Licedei: Semianyki) and cabaret (The 7 Fingers: La vie). Furthermore different politicians, scientists and artists are guests on the stage of the Weltsalon, like the former German federal minister Dr Heiner Geissler, the German actor Rufus Beck, the Indian women rights activist and holder of the alternative Nobel Prize Dr Ruth Manorama, Dr Markus Söder, Bavarian minister of state for environment and health, cabaret artist Sigi Zimmerschied.
The first Tollwood Festival took place in the summer of 1988 on the south Olympia Park grounds in Munich. The Tollwood winter festival has taken place since 1991, starting on the so-called ‘Roncalli Field’ where the Pinakothek der Moderne art museum now is located, then moved to a space off Arnufstrasse and since 2000 has had its home at the Theresienwiese field.
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Winterscenes in Amsterdam
Updated: November 24 2009, 15:33 CET
AMSTERDAM: Although there is now snow yet, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam already presents its visitors with some winter amusement with the exhibition ‘Hendrick Avercamp Little Ice Age’ the first survey of winter landscapes by the Dutch painter Hendrick Avercamp (1585-1634). In addition to twenty of his finest paintings, the exhibition features twenty-five of his best drawings from museums and private collections throughout the world. Avercamp was the first Dutch artist to specialise in paintings of winter landscapes featuring people enjoying the ice. Some 400 years on, our image of life in the harsh winters of the Golden Age is still dominated by Avercamp’s ice scenes with their splendid narrative details of couples skating, children pelting each other with snowballs and unwary individuals falling through the ice.
The Rijkmuseum is located at the Museumplein in Amsterdam that was reconstructed ten years ago to a design by a Swedish architect. There now is a parking and a supermarket underground and, above, is an artificial lake which in winter is converted into an ice skating rink for the four months. From December until March, the ice skating rink at the Museumplein is open everyday between ten o’clock in the morning until eight at night. The air is always full of tempting smells from stands selling Dutch pancakes, American waffles and doughnuts, and a number of other sweet-smelling goodies. The rink is free for skaters but there is a charge for hiring skates.
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Geneva presents major Giacometti retrospective
Updated: November 9 2009, 10:40 CET
GENEVA: Last week Musee Rath in the Swiss city Geneva opened her door to ‘Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966)’ major retrospective exhibition dedicated to the major 20th century Swiss artist Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966). The numerous sculptures, paintings, drawings and documents on show illustrate the evolution of his work from the early surrealistic objects to the large and lengthy figures of his maturity. Giacometti lived in Geneva from 1942 to 1945, which had become a refuge and a place of intellectual exchange for many Parisian artists and writers. There he was a member of the circle around Albert Skira, the editor of the magazine Labyrinthe, to which he contributed three substantial written texts. It was also in Geneva that he met his future wife Annette. Presented in collaboration with the Alberto Giacometti Foundation of Zurich, the exhibit is centred around this Geneva period – now recognized as of fundamental importance in the history of sculpture – while also giving an overview of his life’s work.
Built as a gift to the people of Geneva by two sisters, Jeanne-Françoise and Henriette Rath, and inaugurated in 1826, the Rath museum was conceived as a ‘Temple of the Muses’ embodying both French taste and the Italian style. The museum currently exhibits international as well as Swiss art. Over the past decade it has housed more than 60 thematic and single-artist exhibitions. Special emphasis has been laid on archaeology and ancient art on the one hand (e.g. "Treasures of Islam") and on modern and contemporary art on the other ("Bram van Velde", "Markus Raetz" retrospectives, etc).
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From Byzantine to Istanbul in Paris
Updated: October 26 2009, 10:20 CET
PARIS: Until January 25 the Galeries National du Grand Palais in Paris presents De Byzance à Istanbul (From Byzantine to Istanbul) a major exhibition bringing together around 300 objects from Turkish, French and international public collections, presenting the different stages of Istanbul’s history. Byzantium, renamed Constantinople and then Istanbul, has always been a meeting place and a centre for cultural encounters. Its geographical location makes it both a continental and maritime crossroads, as confirmed by the excavations carried out in 2004 when the undersea tunnel for the future metro was being dug. The site, which has been occupied since the Palaeolithic period, became a focal point as a result of the Bosporus for large flows of migrants from the Balkans towards Anatolia.
The documented existence of a port for over eight thousand years, is the sign of an eminent and prosperous trading point, the key point in a route running from north to south. The city became a capital following the split between the Eastern and Western Roman Empires in 330 and was renamed Constantinople in tribute to the Emperor Constantine. Its position as a commercial, political, military and religious centre grew until the end of the Middle Ages. The modernized ancient city were added to by Venetian and Genoese influences from Galata. The ‘Latin invasion’ which took place throughout the fourth crusade saw Western law imposed between 1204 and 1261, prior to a restoration and then the city’s fall to Sultan Mehmed II in 1453, following the decline of the surrounding Empire.
The Grand Palais ("Big Palace") is a large glas s exhibition hall that was built for the Paris Exhibition of 1900. Built at the same time as the Petit Palais and the Pont Alexandre III, four architects were involved: the main facade was the work of Henri Deglane , the opposite side the work of Albert-Felix-Theophile Thomas, the interior and the other two ends given to Albert Louvet, with the entire job supervised by Charles.
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