Contents Preface A wink on the river IJ How to raise a miracle New land, new part of town Architecture that can make people happy Building imagination Big but cosy Celebration time! At the interface of film and art Classics, box office hits and cult films A heart with 40,000 films Posters Fantasia of Color in Early Cinema Renewed past Special restoration projects Nurturing a passion for film Shop
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Carried away
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Lines
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Movie playground Children’s thoughts
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A forest of monitors
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Behind the scenes Dances with disks
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A quick look at EYE
In April 2012 Queen Beatrix opened the Netherlands national film museum EYE on banks of the river IJ. At long last FILM, the youngest, most popular and dynamic art form, gained the museum it deserves. In the few years since, EYE has developed both as an Amsterdam landmark and a hotspot for film and culture aficionados. This is reflected in the enthusiasm of the staff who all experience the building both as a great place to work and to spend time in. National and international visitors seem to feel the same way, as 700,000 visit the building every year. In addition to cinema and exhibi tion-goers there are visitors to the Panorama permanent exhi bition as well as participants in educational workshops, debates and festivals, not to mention enthusiasts of the popular EYE Bar and Restaurant. EYE’s great appeal is the
unique combination of a master ful architectural design and a richly varied programme. The design (by the Austrian-based firm of Delugan Meissl Asso ciated Architects) is an homage to film itself with its fascinating interplay of light and dark. The whole building is designed in celebration of the enormous power of the image. Once seen, EYE is never forgotten. In this space EYE can finally do justice to its unrivalled collection of some 40,000 films, and present a wide public with film in all its manifestations. Films we offer range from restored classics to contempo rary experimental and from Russian avant-garde to Holly wood mainstream. Particular attention is paid to home-grown films, too. In the exhibition space we present film in a wider context, demonstrating the crossover with contemporary visual arts. EYE combines
acclaimed dedicated exhibi tions, ranging from film pioneer Jean Desmet to contemporary artist William Kentridge. There is a unique programme of screenings, film from the earliest Dutch avant-garde to Quentin Tarantino’s 70mm production of The Hateful Eight. All this is presented in a fabulous building, open to all from early morning until late in the evening. EYE has provided the Netherlands with an outstanding new museum. Sandra den Hamer Director EYE
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A wink on the river IJ
Some see a seagull perching on the bank of the IJ, others an eye sending us a wink from across the water. But there can be no doubt that anyone seeing the futuristic new building of EYE Filmmuseum for the first time is immediately taken by it. Amsterdam has gained another iconic building; a landmark attracting attention from all over the world. In their design for the building, Vienna-based Delugan Meissl Associated Architects (DMAA) were looking for an analogy with movement and light in film. The polygonal shape of the building offers the spectator a different view from every angle and with the slightest change of light. With its widespread wings, the building makes the impossible real, just like film. EYE evolved into an institute which can easily compare to the best film museums in the world in terms of its comprehensive
collections and its major exper tise in the field of film preserva tion and restoration. With the new building on the IJ and the nearby Collection Centre, EYE finally boasts an accommodation with the allure and scope to match the inter national standing of this museum. EYE is a major land mark with its exhibition space of more than 1,200 m2, four cine mas with a total of 640 seats and a spacious bar-restaurant in a captivating building. Amster dam immediately embraced the building, and this is not only of importance to the museum itself. EYE bridges the gap between the northern part of Amsterdam and the historical centre of the city by enticing both locals and tourists to cross the river. It’s a wink, after all.
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Cees Dam, architect
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Delugan Meissl Associated Architects
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Carried away
On a summer Sunday afternoon a woman on her own, a cup of tea in her hands, is sitting in the arena enjoying the view. The bustle on the river IJ presents itself to her via the enormous window in the south front of the building. The view on the river has the effect of a film screen come alive, presenting a spectacle that never ceases to fascinate. Suddenly a majestic cruise ship moves into view from the left. It fills the frame and sails past with measured calm. The woman in her seat is carried away by the sight of it. ‘This is so beautiful’, she says to nobody in particular. Long after this castle of the sea has passed, she is still savouring the image. It’s an experience she will not easily forget.
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How to raise a miracle
EYE is one of the world’s major film museums. Since it was founded in 1946, EYE has built a collection of more than 40,000 films, 700,000 photographs and 78,000 film posters, some of which are put on display in the new building in various ways and with great success: since the museum opened, its exhibi tions, film screenings and activities have attracted more than 500,000 visitors annually. The enormous growth in visitor numbers is the best proof that EYE absolutely needed a new building. The old Vondel park pavilion, where the museum had been housed since 1973, had no exhibition spaces and there were only two small cinemas to accommo date the public. As a result, the Filmmuseum was mostly known for its vast collections and excellent archives in national and international professional film circles.
Plans for a new building had been circulating for a longer period of time, but became more concrete in 2004 when the city council of Amsterdam reached an agreement with ING Real Estate and Ymere property developers about new develop ments on the north bank of the river IJ. At the time it was a decision which required a vision of the future and the belief that this part of town had the poten tial to grow into a new and vibrant cultural centre. From the proposals submitted by five architectural firms, a committee headed by former government architect Mels Crouwel finally selected the plans sent in by the Vienna based company Delugan Meissl Associated Architects. The committee particularly appre ciated the crucial role given to light in the design, imbuing the building with a sense of move ment in keeping with a museum
of the moving image. ‘The designers have shown great sensibility, having successfully and subtly harmonized the demands imposed by the archi tecture, the surroundings and the building’s functionality’, the committee found in its report. And so half way through 2005 a process was started which seven years later ended on schedule with the opening of a building which is admired by almost every person that sees it. In the words of EYE director Sandra den Hamer, three months before the official opening: ‘We’re not hoping for a miracle, we’re creating one on the spot.’ Exhibitions EYE’s exhibition space mea sures over 1,200 m2 and every year several major exhibitions are held, celebrating film as the youngest, most dynamic and innovative of arts. Our exhibi
Each of EYE’s four theatres has its own distinctive character.
All have comfortable seats and state-of-the-art projection tech niques. In EYE you can enjoy both the latest arthouse films and the greatest classics, including those on 35mm and 70mm. The programme includes highlights of film history, the best children’s films, box office hits as well as cult films, many of which come from EYE’s own rich collection. And for the little ones there’s Cinemini. Education Every year over 12,500 secondary and higher education students plus many other visitors take part in EYE’s educational programmes. These range from workshops in the Studio and interactive film programmes to courses and special tours. As the Nether lands’ only film museum, EYE with its over forty years’ experience plays a role of
national importance in the field of film education.
EYE Discover What did cinema equipment and filmstrips look like? What technological developments has film been through over the years? EYE Discover provides answers to these and many other questions. Located throughout the building, various objects demonstrate the world of the moving image.
Panorama A visit to the Panorama on EYE’s basement floor will tell you all about major develop ments in the history of film, from the earliest days to the present. A selection of special film equipment from the collection marks significant events in the history of cinema. Our 360˚ Panorama literally surrounds
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tions explore the territory between film and the moving image. EYE’s large exhibition space offers scope for exhibitions with international prestige. In these exhibitions – featuring works by artists like William Kentridge, Fiona Tan, Aernout Mik and Isaac Julien – EYE investigates the boundaries of the film medium and the interfaces between film and the visual arts. EYE recently presented radical installations by the artist Anthony McCall, works by Johan van der Keuken and the early animations of Oskar Fischinger. EYE also regularly pays tribute to major film authors, showing films by such names as Federico Fellini, Stanley Kubrick and David Cronenberg. Films
will discover for yourself the techniques and optical tricks that allow movie magic to work.
you with a hundred film frag ments from EYE’s collection, and immerses you in film. You can test your film knowledge with a quiz in the yellow mini cinemas, or stand in front of the Green Screen and be the prota gonist in a film scene. You can even send the results to your self and your friends. Also in the Panorama you can shoot scenes for your personal flipbook, which you can pur chase in the EYE Shop upstairs.
EYE Walk With a tablet in hand, children take a fifteen-minute ‘video walk’ through the museum building. They follow various film characters who seem to be right in front of their eyes, in the very same room. In the EYEwalk, children discover what makes a film exciting, and how films can trick the senses.
EYE Explore
EYE Listen
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Film has no single inventor. Independently of each other, countless scientists, pioneers, and entrepreneurs paved the road that led to the camera and projector, which remain two fundamental pieces of film equipment. Throughout the EYE building, you will find several of their illustrious predecessors. By shooting and watching, you
Halfway up the staircase of the Arena, you can sit down on one of the listening benches. Put on the headphones, and dive into the world of some famous film classics. In scenes of five minutes each, 3D sound is used to tell a vivid story about the creation of five films. You will
experience the perspective of the cameraman (Jaws), the script writer (Chinatown), the editor (Run Lola Run), the casting director (Alles is liefde) and the composer (Once Upon a Time in the West).
EYE Set The EYE collection contains 95,000 photographs that were taken on film sets. On monitors in the foyer of Cinema 1, you can see alternating series of set photos from films such as Eyes Wide Shut (Stanley Kubrick, 1999), Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979), and More Sweetly Play the Dance (William Kentridge, 2015). Watch dozens of famous directors at work, along with their cast and crew.
EYE Framed The EYE collection contains not only films but also more than
47,000 film posters, ranging from announcements from the early days of cinema to ads for the latest blockbusters and art house films. The walls outside Cinema 2 and Cinema 3 are regularly adorned with a chang ing selection of posters from the collection: EYE Framed. EYE Shop Our museum shop offers some really great film-related presents such as DVDs, books and posters. There’s cinema beer, exclusive jewellery and even an agnès b. shawl specially designed for EYE. EYE bar-restaurant Our spacious bar-restaurant caters for all tastes and price ranges. The restaurant and terrace offer a superb, cinemato graphic view of the river IJ and the ships passing by.
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New land, new part of town
Around half of EYE has been built on new land reclaimed as part of an urban development scheme for the district of Over hoeks. It needed a unique vision to decide to build here and the conviction that this part of town had the potential to develop into a vibrant new cultural hotspot. Built on ground formerly owned by Shell Research, the new neighbourhood is named after the striking tower situated at the tip of the 49 acres of land which has now been trans formed into the A’DAM Tower. Together with the adjacent Tolhuistuin, it is an essential part of the redevelopment of the north bank of the river IJ, with EYE providing yet another land mark building.
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Roman Delugan, DMAA
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Architecture that can make people happy
That Delugan Meissl Associated Architects wanted to introduce so many flowing lines and dynamic movements in their design for EYE cannot have been a surprise for the city council. The bureau that was started by the Viennese archi tects Roman Delugan (1963) and Elke DeluganMeissl (1959) in 1993 is known for its expres sive buildings with pronounced sculptural forms. DMAA’s archi tectural achievements relate to their surroundings in the same way as living organisms are an integral part of their ecosystem. In the words of the architects, the bureau’s designs are marked by ‘flowing, functionally defined spatial sequences’. Their build ings arise out of the interplay between ‘scale, gravity, geo metry and a suggestion of the inexpressible’. Among the other renowned buildings created by DMAA is the Porsche Museum in Stuttgart (2009), which is as
versatile and brilliant as the car brand itself. Equally striking is the Festival Hall designed by DMAA for the Tiroler Festspiele in Erl (2012). This expressive black building with its sharp angles looks like a majestic origami work of art that has just come to rest in a wide open landscape. Inside, the building has the same pleasing spatiality as EYE. Delugan and Meissl want people to come away from their buildings with a sense of exhilaration. A building in scenes In the building they created for EYE, Delugan Meissl Associated Architects have translated the experience of the film medium into architecture. The architects conceived EYE as a sequence of scenes, with the building constantly offering new views from every angle under the impact of form, light and reflec
tion. Inside, the experience of the building changes with the steady alternation of the light, the panorama and the open and closed spaces, depending on the route through the build ing and the time of day.
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Lines
On the top gallery a group of awed architecture students take in the interplay of lines unfolding below. Oblique lines cut through the view in all directions. The frames in the glass are the only vertical elements in this fluid building. And yet there is a pervasive sense of harmony: it all connects. ‘Have you noticed’, one of the students remarks, ‘there are hardly any angles of less than 90 degrees. It really turns this space into something organic and open’. ‘It’s also because of all this wood in combination with that stark white ceiling’, another one says. ‘Those Starbrick lamps by Olafur Eliasson work really well here, too’, he adds. Far below there’s the buzz of people in the bar, unaware of the designer’s touch, but completely at ease.
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Building Âimagination
The construction of EYE is a masterpiece of balance and distribution of forces. The three parts of the building consist of a structure which used 1,000 tons of steel. The unusual, polygonal shape of the building meant that every pillar and every joist had to be custom made. Various aspects of the design for EYE made a steel structure the most effective solution. In
spite of the 1,000 tons of steel that were used, the structure is relatively light, with a weight of only 110 kg per square metre. The large open spaces in the building were spanned using trusses, a construction method that allows for lightweight and yet sturdy structures. The larger trusses are over 70 metres long and have a height of more than 10 metres. The cantilevers at both ends of the building were
constructed simultaneously, after which the central section, which had been made to measure, was fitted in between the two. Only when the entire steel structure functioned as one unit was it possible to com plete the building.
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Big but cosy
Inside the building almost nothing is straight or at right angles. All the walls are at dif ferent angles to each other and to the floor. The plasterers who had to finish these enormous surfaces, with their slight angles and complicated points of contact, had to be deft hands at their job. The ceilings, which also consist of an intricate pattern of surfaces placed at various angles of inclination, were an equally great challenge to them. Underneath the upper shell of white stucco lies a lower shell of warm oak covering the enorm ous arena; the heart of the build ing. The wooden floor spreads across the entire ground area, including the stairs and the gallery in the bar-restaurant. The centrally placed bar is made of the same material. In this vast space, the warm materials, the ample light and the acoustic ceilings all combine
to create a sense of comfort. The extraordinary Starbrick light modules by Danish artist Olafur Eliasson serve to create a pleasant atmosphere in the evening. The rest of the interior has been designed with restraint and mainly with an eye to its functionality. The entrance, the shop and the corridors behind the arena have a white synthe tic cast floor. The dominant colours in the cinemas are grey, black and purple. Only Cinema 4 has wall decoration in Art Deco style inspired by Cinema Parisien, one of the first cinemas in Amsterdam, which no longer exists. The interior of this historic cinema, however, has been preserved and is now part of EYE’s collection. The walls of Cinema 4 can be evenly illuminated by means of lights concealed behind the wall panels. The large exhibition space
has also been predominantly designed in grey and black to accentuate the visual material on display. The architect want ed to convey a sense of unity between the exhibition space and the arena and so created a continuous ceiling design for both spaces. It proved neces sary, however, to place a par titioning wall between these two spaces to meet the require ments of a museum environ ment, such as fire safety and climate control.
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Rien Hagen, CEO Filmmuseum 2001-2007
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Movie playground
A young man descends the steps to Panorama. This budding filmmaker has already spent many hours here, playing the film jackpots and watching fragments and sometimes entire films in one of the Pods. This time though he’s heading for the Flipbook Machine. He pulls some cards from his bag, positions himself in front of the camera and presses the record button, putting up the cards one by one. The cards read ‘I’ and ‘LOVE’ and ‘YOU’. He watches the result then rushes upstairs and orders a flipbook to be made of his film. He strides off happily, a surprise for his sweetheart safely tucked in his bag.
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Carolien Gehrels, Alderman of Art and Culture, Municipality of Amsterdam
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Crystal, the interactive light installation by Daan Roosegaarde, launched the first day of the festival PICNIC at EYE
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Children’s thoughts
Here I’m still sitting on the land, but over there where it sparkles, is where the water begins.
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Later if you’re going to make films, you’ll give me the lead role, okay? If I lived here, I’d make a great big swing over there in the middle.
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Cele bration time!
On Wednesday 4 April 2012 Queen Beatrix officially opened EYE’s new building. The real opening, however, took place on the fifth day, when doors opened to welcome the ‘general’ public. It was on this day, too, that EYE’s first exhibi tion, Found Footage: Cinema Exposed, was launched. That Thursday the public enthusias tically embraced the building. Every year in April EYE celebrates its anniversary with its Film Gala, a place where film directors, actors, actresses and others from the world of film, the visual arts, politics and the world of culture can meet and mingle. At EYE’s annual Film Gala, too, the winner is announced of the EYE Art & Film Prize. The first winner of this new prize, the visual artist Hito Steyerl, was announced by Culture Minister Bussemaker in 2015. Steyerl was followed in 2016 by the British
artist/filmmaker Ben Rivers. The prize is awarded to artists who explore the interface between visual arts and film. The £ 25,000 prize is meant to fund the making of new work.
Franc F. – visitor EYE via Tripadvisor
Vrij Nederland (Kees Driessen) d.d. 08/01/2013
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Roberto Olla – Executive Director Eurimages Council of Europe 20122020
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As both a museum and a cine matheque, EYE forms a vital link with cinematheques and museums of modern and con temporary art throughout the world. EYE’s building, with its four theatres, workshop space and drawing on its own film collec tion, makes it ideal for com prehensive exhibition program ming. Allembracing program mes featuring film screenings, lectures, debates, music and workshops all serve to enhance and enrich the exhibitions. In addition to the temporary exhibitions, EYE’s Panorama is an easyaccess permanent exhibition showing historical film equipment and fragments from EYE’s collection. Here visitors can also watch several thematically arranged film fragments with the help of seven control panels. In specially designed cabins known as Pods and fitted with comfortable
threeseater sofas and Cinema scope screens, visitors can watch more fragments as well as complete films. They can also engage with interactive installations that focus on the moving image.
Close-Up
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Exhibitions at the inter face of film and art
As an international museum devoted to the art and culture of the moving image, EYE provides an exhibition programme of equal international importance. EYE aims to pioneer the presen tation of film in a museum con text. Each year the four tempo rary exhibitions investigate the interactions between film, the visual arts and other media and focus on major filmmakers such as Kubrick and Fellini as well as special themes and influential currents in film art. EYE not only draws on its own collection for these exhibitions but also collaborates with national and international cine matheques and museums. No longer restricted to single screen projection in a theatre, EYE is exploring the oppor tunities to highlight film in many different ways. The museum occasionally invites artists to create new work using visual material from EYE’s collection.
William Kentridge: If We Ever Get to Heaven
...an absolute high so far in [Kentridge’s] oeuvre, and in EYE’s young existence... (***** de Volkskrant)
William Kentridge on the exhibition of his work in EYE: ‘Working with EYE was a great pleasure on three levels. First of all, there’s the quality of the presentation. The projections and the sound have set a standard which other installa tions of this artwork have yet to equal. Secondly there was the film programme that was organized in support of the exhibition, which introduced me to numerous juxtapositions of film and music that were new to me. Thirdly, it’s the collection which is housed in the museum. Only rarely does the installation of a work at the same time offer the raw material which then becomes the start of a sub sequent work – as has been the case with the superb material from the collection of the film museum.’
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Praise from the press for William Kentridge – If We Ever Get to Heaven:
...not to be missed. One of his most impressive works ever... ( ***** Elsevier)
William Kentridge: If We Ever Get to Heaven
One of EYE’s most successful exhibitions to date was William Kentridge – If We Ever Get to Heaven.
Stanley Kubrick: The exhibition
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Anthony McCall
The Guardian (Adrian Searle) d.d. 09/01/2013
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Oskar Fischinger (1900 – 1967)
Fellini: The Exhibition
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Fellini: The Exhibition
Michelangelo Antonioni: Il Maestro del Cinema Moderno
William Kentridge: If We Ever Get to Heaven
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Anthony McCall: Solid Light Films and Other Works
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Aernout Mik, visual artist
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Expanded Cinema: Isaac Julien, Fiona Tan, Yang Fudong
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EYE’s film programming explores the interface between cinema and other arts plus it offers opportunities to budding and established film authors and interprets original and dis tinctive work in a variety of ways through additional programmes. EYE also pays attention to his torical, socio-cultural, political, cinematographic and techno logical trends which have influenced cinema. EYE provides thematic and summer program mes, as well as outstanding film series, historical specials and film premieres in context,
for which EYE frequently draws on its own rich collection. In four cinemas with a total of 640 seats, EYE offers a varied programme with an average of twenty screenings a day, fea turing many films from its own comprehensive archive. Often films are presented alongside additional programmes, many with Q&A sessions with film makers. The Cinema Concert series offers live performances in the large foyer that provide musical accompaniment to early silent films. Sometimes there is a com
plete symphony orchestra, at other times the music is per formed on a cinema organ from The Hague’s former Passage cinema, originally built in 1929 and specially restored for EYE. EYE regularly presents clas sic films from its own collec tions, preceded by a talk given by a cinema expert. An alto gether different experience is offered by the EYE on ART and Cinema Egzotik programmes. EYE on Art explores filmic horizons by experimenting with presentation forms, for instance by adding new or improvised
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Classics, box office hits and cult films
music to experimental films, or by integrating dance, theatrical monologues or performances as suggested by the film. Cinema Egzotik regales the public with some of the most extraordinary spaghetti westerns, crime films, zombie films, cannibal films and police films. EYE also regularly hosts events, such as Virtual Reality presentations, Museum Night, Exposed Events, the Inter national Day of the Short Film, Home Movie Day, the Unesco World Day of Audiovisual Heri tage and the Cello Biennale. Thanks to a programme that includes exclusive perfor mances for film clubs and a range of special festivals (Cine dans | Dance on Screen Festival, Imagine Film Festival, Fantastic Kids’ Film Festival and the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam) as well as the latest cinema releases, EYE is used to its full potential.
EYE was the only theatre in the Benelux to screen Quentin Tarantino’s 70mm Ultra Pana vision version of The Hateful Eight, complete with overture, intermission and extra scenes. It was the most visited film ever screened at EYE, and attracted the largest audience in the world for showings of the film. The screening of The Hateful Eight on 70mm follows on pre vious widescreen presentations in EYE, such as Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master (2012). EYE also provided 70mm screen ings of historic widescreen films like Dune (1984), Dersu Uzala (1975) and Voyna i mir (1966). EYE is one of the few venues in het Benelux able to project the 70mm format.
eOne Films Benelux
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The Hateful Eight on 70mm
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L’orgie Romaine, 1911
Les Parisiennes, 1897
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arge and small
from Tuesday to Friday from 12.00 - 17.00. The heart of EYE is formed by its extensive collection of films and film-related objects. The majority of EYE’s activities are based on its own films, photographs, posters, (pre-) cinema apparatus, magic lanterns slides, sound tracks and sheet music, paper archives of film makers and books on film. EYE’s collections span the entire history of film, ranging from the earliest films by the Lumière brothers to the latest digital productions. EYE’s storage facility contains some 60 million metres of film, in all over 40,000 film titles, both Dutch and international. With 20,000 titles, the col lection of Dutch films ranks as the largest in the world. The collection of silent films, some 7,000 titles produced both in the Netherlands and abroad,
Maudit soit la guerre, 1914
A heart with 40,000 films
EYE’s Collection Centre opened on Asterweg in North Amster dam in 2016. For the first time in 70 years EYE’s collection is now gathered under one roof. The only exception being the price less nitrate films, which date back to the years 1895-1950 and require special storage. The opening of the new building ended a long period when EYE’s films, photographs, posters and paper archives were dis persed over more than ten storage spaces. The EYE Collection Centre houses the storage facility and the reading room (EYE Study) plus workplaces for the restorers, curators and collection staff. It also provides space for jour nalists, filmmakers, academics, students and professionals engaged in film preservation and research. However, admission for other visitors is by appoint ment only. EYE Study is open
Weisz and Rudolf van den Berg are all managed by EYE, as well as the archives of a number of film organizations and film companies. Finally, EYE has a collection of film equipment consisting of 1,500 items, primarily recording and projection equipment from
various periods in film history. In addition, EYE owns the largest library devoted to film in the Netherlands, which is open to the public free of charge in the Collection Centre on Asterweg in North Amsterdam, at a stone’s throw from EYE.
Un leçon d’amour, 1912
events also feature in the collec tion. No film without its own poster, and EYE owns around 78,000 of them, deriving from various countries and periods, though Dutch posters are a special collecting interest. Music is inseparably linked with film, and EYE’s collections cover a great variety of film music, from sound tracks on various gramophone record formats to contemporary film music on CD. Special items in the collection are the 15-inch records from the early days of sound film. EYE also boasts a sizeable collection of sheet music. It is an added bonus for film researchers that many Dutch filmmakers, scriptwriters and film critics decided to donate their paper archives to EYE. The collections of Bert Haanstra, Fons Rademakers, Pim de la Parra, Wim Verstappen, Frans
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Le roi des dollars, 1905
is undoubtedly one of the most extraordinary thanks to its large number of unique copies of international titles. EYE owes this status partly to the collection brought together by film distributor Jean Desmet. Donated to the Film museum in 1957, this collection comprises more than 900 films that were circulating in cinemas in the 1910s. The Desmet Collec tion was entered in the UNESCO Memory of the World Register in 2011. In addition, EYE’s collec tion features a great many docu mentaries, including the oeuvre of Dutch cinematographers Joris Ivens and Johan van der Keuken. Besides films, EYE’s collec tions include more than 700,000 photographs, slides, negatives, lobby cards and film still post cards. Most of the photographs are film stills and actor portraits, but set stills and photographs of film premieres and other
L’avventura, Michelangelo Antonioni 1960
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8 1/2, Federico Fellini 1963
Vertigo, Alfred Hitchcock 1958
Desmet, film distributor and owner of a chain of cinemas. From 1907 he carefully kept every poster that was sent to his firm. In 1957, his entire collection of 2,000 posters came to the former Filmmuseum. EYE’s collection of posters is also special because it is rare to find an institute collecting both national and international posters. In addition to a large collection of Dutch posters, EYE holds a unique set of postwar posters from Poland, the former Czech Republic and Cuba. On top of this, the collec tion includes more than 1,400 Polish posters, which were in great demand in the West in the 1950s and 1960s. Polish designers coming to Western Europe at the time knew that the Stedelijk Museum in Amster dam, which housed the Film museum at the time, was eager to buy their work.
Cinema Parisien, design Julien t’Felt, The Netherlands 1909
Posters
Posters have always been an essential part of film publicity campaigns. EYE has the largest collection of ‘early’ posters in the world, again thanks to the collecting passion of Jean
Blow up, Michelangelo Antonioni 1966
The Red Turtle, Michael Dudok de Wit 2016
Zbuntowana orkiestra, Franciszek Starowieyski 1960 (Fanfare, The Netherlands 1958)
Down by Law, Jim Jarmush 1986
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His Vacation, USA 1912
Bulwar zachodzacego stonca, Waldemar Swierzy 1957 (Sunset Blvd., USA 1950)
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Im Lauf der Zeit, Wim Wenders 1976
E.T., Steven Spielberg, USA 1982
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Niezamezna kobieta, Mieczyslaw Wasilewski 1979 (An Unmarried Woman, USA 1977)
Een Zwoele Zomeravond, Frans Weisz 1982
Zwartboek, Paul Verhoeven 2006
2001: A Space Odessey, Stanley Kubrick, USA 1968
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A forest of monitors
Two grand pianos are placed opposite each other in Cinema 1. The pianists Tomoko Mukaiyama and Gerard Bouwhuis glance at each other. Then Bouwhuis strikes the first chords of Stravinsky’s Le sacre du printemps, the version for two pianos. They are surrounded on stage by more than thirty monitors. This forest of monitors later projects extraordinary colour footage of unfolding flowers and growing crystals, made by filmmaker Jan Cornelis Mol, who was already working with time-lapse photography in the 1920s. His films are among the absolute highlights of EYE’s collection.
Les tulipes,1907
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Le voyage sur Jupiter, 1909
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Fantasia of Color in Early Cinema
‘I could gaze at the images in this book for hours. They are as fascinating as illuminated manuscripts or magic lantern slides.’ – Martin Scorsese Thus said Scorsese in his pre face to ‘Fantasia of Color in Early Cinema’. This richly illustrated work unlocks a wealth of coloured frames from EYE’s collection of early films (1895-1915). The images are drawn from more than sixty original film copies dating from before the First World War. In a collection of evocative essays the book’s authors discuss their fascination for the history of early film, including the tech nical processes, the preserva tion techniques available and contemporary options for film presentation. This is the first book to really do justice to the visual magic of early cinema.
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Renewed past
Before 1950, films were made on nitrate stock. This highly flammable material decayed over the years so after 1950 filmmakers used acetate stock. Although inflammable, acetate, too, is subject to degradation through discoloration and acetic acid gas if it is not stored under the right conditions. So film museums must constantly monitor their collections and restore these films. Fortunately EYE is an international pioneer in the field of film restoration and digitization with a collec tion of over 12,000 nitrate films and almost 30,000 films on acetate stock. EYE received international acclaim for its striking and technologically innovative restorations of classics, expe rimental and silent films. Titles like Beyond the Rocks (1922, with Rudolph Valentino and Gloria Swanson), J’accuse! (Abel Gance, 1919) and Wan
pipel (1976) by Pim de la Parra were all given a new lease of life as beautifully restored copies thanks to EYE’s profes sional expertise and knowhow. These restoration successes have earned EYE several inter national prizes, including the Jean Mitry Award, the Film Preservation Honours and the
Prix Henri Langlois. EYE also collaborates with film archives worldwide on mutual restoration projects. The British Film Institute used material from EYE for its recent
restorations of Hitchcock films and in the context of the Inter national Chaplin Keystone restoration project, a few copies held by EYE proved to be the oldest and best preserved copies. In collaboration with national and international laboratories, EYE is participa ting in research to help improve restorations even further. EYE also digitizes films of cinema quality standard for digital projections and online presen tations. Between 2007 and 2012 EYE also worked on the large scale national restoration and digitization project Images for the Future, together with the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision, the National Archive and Kennisland.
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Beyond the Rocks, USA 1922
Love, Life and Laughter, George Pearson, GB 1923
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Special restoration projects
Beyond the Rocks
Shoes
When EYE curators came across the first acts from the 1922 film Beyond the Rocks among a collection of 2,000 film canisters that had been donated to the museum, they knew they were on to something special. With the exception of a single, oneminute fragment held in EYE’s archives, not one copy of this film starring Rudolph Valentino and Gloria Swanson was known to have survived. The remaining seven canisters of the film in the as yet uncatalogued collection were hunted out and retrieved, after which the film was restored by EYE. The international premiere of the restored version at Cannes Film Festival received worldwide attention from the press. Since that time this film, which was thought to have been lost, is regularly screened at festivals, by associated organ isations and on television.
EYE holds the only surviving complete copy of Shoes (1916), a strong indictment of underpaid labour by Lois Weber, who ranks as one of the most prominent female directors of the early film. The film had already been preserved in 1990, but serious bacterial damage caused white blotches on the film. Following international interest on the part of women’s studies and film institutes in the US, EYE decided to carry out a new, digital resto ration project in 2010. We Can’t Go Home Again ‘The restoration of We Can’t Go Home Again (1973) was one of EYE’s major projects in the past years. With the restored version, a real gem has been added to EYE’s collections’, said EYE director Sandra den Hamer, speaking to a group of
students about the restored version of this rarely screened radical visual experiment by director Nicholas Ray (Rebel Without A Cause, 1955). Den Hamer: ‘Nicholas Ray is one of those film authors who has reinvented cinema and changed the art of the moving image.’ EYE restored the film in colla boration with the Nicholas Ray Foundation and the American Academy Film Archive. The restored film world premiered at the Venice Film Festival in 2011. Love Life and Laughter In March 2014 a spectacular discovery was made when the British classic Love Life and Laughter (1923, George Pear son), which was considered lost, emerged from EYE’s col lection. The film featured on the British Film Institute’s ‘most wanted’ list. The discovery of
The restoration of The Spanish Dancer (1923) by Herbert Brenon yielded an exceptional and beautifully photographed film, involving the best scriptwriters and actors at the time, including Pola Negri. The film is a costume drama comedy set in 1625 and follows the adventures of Maritana, a Spanish gypsy singer who has fallen in love with the impoverished bon vivant nobleman Don César de Bazan. The lovers get caught up in a court plot to estrange the Spanish king from his French wife, but Maritana’s charm and wit save the day. Film historian Kevin Brown low had the following to say about the restoration: ‘The cut down version was enjoyable
The Spanish Dancer, 1923
The Spanish Dancer
building was opened, the 60minute film starring Dutch diva Annie Bos was presented to an international audience. Outstanding restorations of more recent Dutch films include the restored versions of Wan Pipel (Pim de la Parra, 1976), Spetters (Paul Verhoeven, 1980) and Abel (Alex van Warmerdam, 1986). The restored versions of Wan Pipel and Abel were screened at the Netherlands Film Festival in Utrecht. The premiere of the restored version of Spetters in EYE was a major event.
Dutch Films
The Bertha (Louis Hendricus Chrispijn sr, 1913), a very early Dutch silent film which until recently was regarded as lost, was recovered in 2011 and restored preserving the original colours. When EYE’s new
We Can’t Go Home Again na restauratie
and spectacular, but now the restoration reveals an excep tional film. EYE has given us yet another classic from what many regard as the richest era in the cinema’s history.’
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the nitrate print, which was in mint condition, made world headlines.
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Behind the scenes
The projectionist has just started a new film for the audience in Cinema 4. A standard 35 mm film. She now has 10 minutes to start the next film for the audience in Cinema 2. It is very convenient that all three booths of Cinemas 2, 3 and 4 are directly accessible from the operators’ office. The film in Cinema 2 is a digital film. Piece of cake. All booths are equipped with projectors for 16 mm, 35 mm, 70 mm, 2K and 4K films (and also 3D). It’s a wonderful job to do.
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Nurturing a passion for film
One of EYE’s major goals is to nurture passion for film in both younger and older generations and increase awareness of this very special art form. Learning to understand and use film idiom and visual language is becoming increasingly impor tant in our highly media influenced society. Film offers children a special way to explore the world around them. With EYE as their guide they can travel through an over whelming world of visual cul ture. EYE offers young children, teenagers and adults the know ledge and skills not only to explore film but to analyse it and develop an appreciation of its impact on society. For almost all educational activities, EYE works with unique material from its own collection. EYE offers programmes aimed at educational levels, from interactive film program mes and courses to unique
workshops and tours. Program mes designed for schools aim to make children experience, discover and work with film themselves. The key premise is personal involvement which inspires children to ask such questions as: “How does film affect me, what can I do with film?”. EYE also invites children and adults to discover film beyond the scope of its educational programmes by offering a range of activities from lectures, film courses, talent days and festive events to the ‘EYEwalk’, the EYE Explore More treasure hunt and holiday workshops held in the studio. EYE’s programming is based on contexts familiar to children but encourages them to explore new horizons too. Innovative projects inspire them to learn new things, to look at film in dif ferent ways and be creative with film. MovieZone is EYE’s ‘young
their own community. Headed by a team of six young adults, EXPOSED is focused and in depth. It highlights cinema past the film reel, projecting all areas of art and culture by presenting an online magazine and organizing opening events for each new exhibition in EYE. EYE is also a partner in film education for numerous cine mas, producers, film festivals, cultural and educational institutions and libraries.
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people’s brand’, offering young people aged 12-21 the chance to discover the versatility of film and develop new skills, both in practice (making films them selves and participating in work shops) and in theory (learning about the history and technol ogy of film). It is MovieZone’s policy to connect online and offline activities, always looking to achieve an even mix of enter tainment and education. The online platform moviezone.nl brings it all together, the history, background information on technology, vlogs, reviews and film tips. Here can be found blogs by young people’s juries at film festivals and online series on making film. Movie zone received the NOT (National Education Exhibition) Innova tion Award in 2015 and was nominated for an International Digital Emmy. With EXPOSED, EYE offers young adult culture enthusiasts
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Dance with disks
In the workshop space two boys aged 12 and 14 are busy working with small coloured disks of transparent material. They are making a stop motion film, and with the equipment they are given it is becomes dead simple. The boys place the disks on a light box and press the computer’s space bar. The camera above the light box immediately takes a photograph. They then slightly shift the disks and take the next photograph, each time checking how their film is getting along: soon the disks are dancing across the screen. After ten minutes they have already compiled a few seconds’ worth of film. They will receive the finished result by email in a few days, with a bit of music added as a surprise.
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Shop
What do the Guggenheim, the Victoria & Albert Museum and EYE have in common? All three feature in The Guardian’s Top Ten of museums with the most attractive shops. The British newspaper called EYE’s gift shop a ‘treasure trove for film fans’. EYE Shop is worth a visit in its own right, The Guardian noted. Not only does the shop stock a wide range of great movie memorabilia, its collection of DVDs, film books and posters is also unrivalled. Its highly distinctive selection of cine matographic toys (‘Darth Vader and Son’, ‘16 hilarious sound effects’) also gets a special mention by The Guardian’s travel journalist. EYE Shop previously received praise, having made it to the Top Ten list of the Dutch national newspaper Het Parool (‘the
post cards are among the most original ones the city has to offer’) and is often listed in international museum and travel sections.
Credits
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A’dam Lookout (9lb) Arda Risselada (12, 13) Co de Kruijf (42b, 42d, 88t) Collectie Stichting IJbeeld (14, 20, 21,27) Dennis Guzzo (28) Desiré van den Berg (89) Entertainment One distributie (62, 63) Françoise Bolechowski (87, 90a)
© 2016 EYE, Amsterdameyefilm.nl ISBN: 978-90-71338-20-5 Nothing from this publication may be reproduced or stored in any form of information retrieval system or otherwise made public in any manner without the written consent of EYE. Every attempt has been made to trace the rights holders of the images. Should you feel you hold copyright to images in this publication please contact EYE.
Architectural Digest
Photography:
Hans Boddeke (42c, 44, 45b, 53, 61, 83, 88b, 90b, 91) Hans Wilschut (48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58) Iwan Baan (1, 4, 9b, 24a, 24b) Maarten Noordijk (3) Martin Hogeboom (34lb, 35rb, 36c, 36d, 42a, 43) Merlijn Snitker ( 34rt, 84, 85) Michael Vervuurt (31) Mike Bink (17, 18, 36b, 38, 39) Moeskop Staalbouw (26) Paul van der Klei (36a, 37, 90c) Petra Noordkamp (8lb) Pieter Mustard (30) Ralph Richter (9rt, 32, 34rb) René den Engelsman (6, 7, 8r, 24c, 24d, 25, 34lt, 35rt, 45b, 74c) Rob Looman (74a, 74b, 74d, 75) Thomas van Schaik (35l, 92, 93) Vijay Slager ( 62)
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Concept and text: Bas van Lier Design: Joseph Plateau, Amsterdam Text editing: Mariska Graveland, EYE Image editing: Marjan Vos, EYE Translation: Cis van Heertum, Maureen & Peter Hire Print: robstolk®