Off off Beat beat Cinema cinema
underground cinema magazine amsterdam issue no. 01 / 01-2011 free Underground Cinema Magazine
Amsterdam Issue no. 01 01-01-11 Free
001 1.24-city
2.Cinema derive 3.Cinema massage 4.Wrapped land - Demon seed 5.Kino Praxis: local angel by Thaijs. local angel by Adam 6.Education - movies by Jack 7.Going underground by Luuk 8.Zietgeists by Merav 9.Interview with Aryan Kaganof 10.Cartoon by Jane 11.Cinemapasta 12.Cine qua non 13.Artchive 14.Kino Kabaret
OT301 Overtoom 301 Amsterdam www.ot301.nl
off beat content In Off Beat Cinema magazine you’ll find the following: page 03: page 05: page 06: page 07: China page 10: page 12: page 14: page 22: page 24: page 28: page 32: page 34: page 38: page 40: page 42: page 44: page 47:
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Editorial Column Jack Sargeant Cartoon Jane Porter The global, the local, Interview, Aryan Kaganof OT301 cinema overview Amsterdam cinema overview Cinema Pasta Cinema Derive Warped lens Cine qua non Kino Praxis Zeitgeist Cinema Massage Column, Luuk Huet Message board Kino Kabaret
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off beat editorial We are happy and proud to present this first edition of Off Beat Cinema Our mission is to create a meeting point for all film enthusiasts: viewers and makers. We will publish a diverse monthly up to date program representing the Alternative & independent film screen in Amsterdam; giving space to squats like Joe’s garage and recognised institutions like the Film museum. Also we will promote networks of film makers like Kino Kabaret and give out information about places where you can show your work, funds, workshops and more. I hope you will enjoy reading it as much as we enjoyed making this magazine, Spread the love! Yours truly, Merav Artzi
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Education! Education! Education! Old educational films are a true pleasure for connoisseurs of oddball cinema and weird movies. Predominantly produced for the education of students, the genre also includes films made for soldiers and even training videos for employees. The movies tended to be short documentaries that sought to inform the audience on one particular facet of a topic. There’s rarely – if ever – any debate or argument in an educational film, instead simple facts (or factoids) are presented to the viewer often with a conservative moral twist. The zenith of the educational movie was the 50s and 60s, when teachers would drag a 16mm projector into the classroom and these films offer a unique insight into the educational demands and standards of a different era. Many consider the classics of the genre to be films about drug danger, sex education and drivers-ed, films that offered moral tales frequently punctuated with graphic images of sex and violence. Sex, drugs and fasten your seatbelts The anti-drug genre stretches back to the likes of exploitation classics such as Marijuana Madness but the educational anti-drug movie reached its zenith in the late ‘60s with films like Trip To Where (1968). Following a young Navy man who drops acid with two friends and has the definitive bad trip and by the end of the movie he is driven insane by LSD. Trip To Where has everything from cheesy special effects trip sequence to a tongue-clicking message. Another classic antipsychedelic educational LSD Case Study (196?) follows a tripping girl as she buys a hot dog, but each time she bites – or tries to bite - the anthropomorphic meal screams in agony. The sex education movie took the audience where prim social science teachers may otherwise have feared to tread, presenting topics such as
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amsterdam
by Jack Sargeant
puberty, dating, and menstruation. The genre’s early classics - Growing Girls (1949) and The Story of Menstruation (1946) - coyly wrap these topics into neat bundles that are equally defined by chaste behaviour and rigidly observed rituals of personal hygiene, although by the late ‘60s and ‘early ‘70s the films had become more explicit with images of nudity. Drivers-ed movies, designed to make teens drive safely, are a combination of Grand Guignol gore and authentic horror. Mechanized Death (1961) opens with the remarkable sound of a woman screaming and whining and groaning and sobbing in pain, audiences know this because the grim narration tells us that it is the sound of “excruciating agony”. The film doesn’t let up in its blood-splattered footage of car crashes and mutilated corpses. The idea that teenagers would be screened movies such as Mechanized Death and its equally gory predecessor Signal 30 (1959) in classrooms seems baffling now, but the genre spawned many films that would be screened to classrooms full of shocked and nauseated teens. Young conscripts to the army were also exposed to educational movies, which were often screened to warn them of the dangers of various forms of (ahem) ‘fraternization’ with local females. These films included Whatsoever A Man Soweth (1917), which cut images of soldiers worrying about syphilis with horrifying images of babies born ravaged by the disease in its congenital form. The 1942 movie Ship Of Shame depicted a battleship dangerously undermanned as the results of a VD riddled crew. This was made more horrifying by the inclusion of close-up footage of rotting genitals. These long lost totems to the education of the past are worth seeking out for any archaeologist of the cinematic. (First published in FilmInk)
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The Global, the Local, China. A reflection on Kino Praxis’ first screening night. Film: 24 City (Jia Zhang Ke, China, 2008) One is hard-pressed to find actual critique in contemporary visual culture. This is not the least of its problems. What seems to be our current condition is the spectacular transport of commodities through an imaginary that we call ‘global’. Such planetary culture has less to do with the world as a material object than that it functions as the zombified PR campaign for a cynical implementation and management of private interests, class divisions and the commodification of ways of life. They call it the cosmopolitan lifestyle. I call it neo-imperialism.
Cartoon by Jane Porter
Jane Porter is an illustrator/cartoonist who ran away from the land of censorship Singapore and landed in Amsterdam. New and alone in the city, she spent most of her week at the various independent cinemas in town. Inspired, she started organizing an irregular Queer Cinema in a dykebar and squat. She is very interested in queer films, smut and true love. email: jotterpot@yahoo.com janepotts.multiply.com secondhandstories.blogspot.com
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Framing China The cinematic treatment of China as a site of fantasy exemplifies this currency in late capitalism. It presents us with present, past and even future scenarios that are fully dissolved from empirical reality because, well, that would be just too real. Thus all we get is spectacle: be it Angelina Jolie (quelle angel!) globetrotting her way by motorbike on a hyperkinetized wall of China, or Gong Li inserting herself into the Hollywood apparatus endorsing martial arts as the only transport malleable enough for the popular imagination. The visible is quite intolerable. A facile critique would be that all these images perpetuate symbolic violence against China’s complex histories, cultures and communities, and that they implicitly indict any form of criticism as anachronistic or naive. While such criticism is valid, it never seems to question the real problem: the only ‘just’ horizons imaginable remain those tainted either by orientalism or industrial imperatives of progress.
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FILM REVIEW date: 9-11-2010 time: 20:30 place: OT301
In the meantime things are falling apart. There are cracks in the fluffy foundations of the planetary comfort class, financial crisis being only the latest installment of imminent Catastrophe. But what do they do? Release another ‘based on historical facts’ Asian mediation and for good measure organise a benefit concert in support of some radically Other, completely illegible Asian subaltern. We should refute all these narratives and re-establish a sociability that finds its roots not in the ‘age of the global’ (we have never been global!) but in the acknowledgment of common grounds. Only this may offer frames against Colonialism 2.0. 24 City The depressing state of China’s recent industrial history is portrayed in Jia Zhang-Ke’s docu-fiction 24 City (2008). By shedding light of the rupturing effects of globalization (read: industrialization, privatization, class maintenance, deregulation of State control over capital flows) Zhang-Ke interrogates the actual effects that are fostered by History. An alienating, yet all-too-familiar service economy collides with the Fordist paradigm, as the film follows three generations of characters living and working at a state-owned factory that is slowly giving way to a modern apartment complex. This narrative is composed in an oblique way: while Zhang Ke interviews people using documentary tropes, whether their stories are enacted or real is completely ambivalent. In this way, the film becomes less a reflection on representation and truth than a quasi-method of treating social, political or aesthetic issues with filmmaking. I would argue there is a definite kino praxis here. The film fosters contemplation precisely because its assemblage consists not of action images, but rather something we may
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call pensive images. The impressive yet taxing long takes, calm transitions featuring meditative sceneries (neither dystopian nor glorious) and affective soundtrack all stimulate focus and attention. The pensive images
oscillate between determinacy and indeterminacy, activity and passivity, but also art and non-art. As such, this film aligns itself to the poetics of Romanticism: its imagery is decidedly not the expression of a representation,
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or a coding of a message, but rather the contemplation of lives derailed, set off course by new fissures in political economy. This is the second main point of concern for Zhang Ke: how to present such shifts? This grotesque material shift is tracked in parallel to the duration of the narrative. The interview sequences slowly lead up to the dismantling of the factory and the rise of the apartment complex. This slow but steadfast change intensifies the
awareness that economic operations that are oriented towards the global clash with the operations executed on the local. The memories of individuals and groups are made to linger among the rubble. A sadness is indexed by intergenerational misunderstanding: a son can no longer understand why his father endured a life’s worth of manual labour. A defragmented view The contemplative 24 City allows us to rethink the challenges and (im)
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possibilities for change in the age that is problematically prefixed by ‘global’. If anything, the film shows how the tendency in political debate to differentiate the global, the local, the economic or the cultural as if they were autonomous and mutually independent is extremely problematic. In an audacious move, Zhang Ke asks: is this really the landscape of the inevitable? A change of discourse please! Thijs Witty
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Interview with about his film Aryan Kaganof SMS Sugarman, shot with a phone camera.
Aryan Kaganof (born Ian Kerkhof, 1964 Johannesburg) is an independent filmmaker, artist and poet. He is a pioneer in the use of DV (Naar de Klote, 1996) and phone cameras. In 2005 he shot SMS Sugarman, the first feature film made with the use of phone cameras. Caridad Botella: You moved to the Netherlands to escape apartheid in South Africa, could you tell me why you went back? Aryan Kaganof: Actually I moved away from South Africa in 1983 to avoid doing military service in the apartheid army. I returned to South Africa in 1999 in order to meet my biological father who had a non-Hodgkin lymphoma and therefore not long to live. I lived with him for a year and a half and when he passed away I changed my name in order to honour my patrilineal bloodline. CB: Earlier experimental filmmakers such as Jonas Mekas, Maya Deren and Stan Brakhage, or movements such Nouvelle Vague, are mentioned when defining the archaeology of mobile phone made films. Using non-standard gauge and cameras is nothing new after all. What is for you the novelty or revolution of this medium compared to the past? AK: Using a phone camera is not loaded with the pretension of “film making”. It does not have the baggage of “film history”. One works intuitively with the body as a much more intrinsic part of the framing than with film cameras which centralize themselves in the framing process, to which the body of the person controlling the camera is in fact exterior. This fluid and intui-
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tive way of working with framing creates an entirely cyborgian aesthetic that draws attention to itself, if one is approaching cell phone films from a classical film making aesthetic. I try not to do so and approach cell phone film making as an activity in itself, with its own intrinsic aesthetic that I am researching and discovering whilst filming. CB: In the article “De digitale filmrevolutie. Allemaal Scheppers” published in Vrij Nederland, you are quoted saying that your work would have been impossible without the digital revolution, why has digital suited your purpose so well? AK: Primarily because it has freed me from the necessity of working with socalled “producers” who are the carrion of the film industry. CB: You made SMS Sugar Man in 2006, would you use this medium again in the future? AK: Actually we shot in December 2005, I edited in 2006, waged war with the so-called “producers” for all of 2007 and finally won my film from their dirty clutches and released it in 2008. Subsequent to SMS Sugar Man I made a documentary called “Sally in Winterland: The Making of Dick Tuinder” that I shot on a Nokia N95 phone camera. This 52-minute long documentary had its world premiere in Groningen on 17 April 2009 during the Viva La Focus Mobile Phone Film Festival. More information about this film is here: http://tinyurl.com/kaganof1 http://tinyurl.com/kaganof2
CB: You have pointed out that the real theme of SMS Sugar Man is how the Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) program actually works against black people’s freedom in South Africa, and that this hasn’t been picked up by the critics. Do you think the novelty of the medium casts a shadow on the real content of the film? AK: You are absolutely correct. The technology overwhelms the content to an extent that is quite baffling to me. But on the other hand I always foreground the technology in my interviews so maybe it is my fault. CB: SMS Sugar Man was rejected by the Venice Film Festival, which is why you decided to distribute the film through your own blog or mobile telephony, making the film available to a wider audience. Did you experience this rejection as something positive after all? (Perhaps it wasn’t negative to begin with…) AK: Rejection is always positive. It makes you try harder! CB: This wide availability contrasts with the fact that your previous films are quite hard to find in DVD format in art house rental shops (in Amsterdam). Will you be distributing more films through the same means? AK: I would like to sell more DVDs so please demand from the art house rental shops that they get in touch with me and buy my DVDs for rental! Yay! CB: The film was screened at the Africa on Screen Film Festival in Johannesburg only this past summer. Why did it take
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so long to happen? AK: Because I was involved in a long and protracted legal battle with the so-called “producers” over the ownership of the film. CB: In the past years festivals dedicated to phone camera films have flourished, beyond the hype. What is most relevant contribution of the medium for the future of filmmaking? AK: For me it is that I always have a camera on board wherever I go, and therefore I’m always integrating mobile phone footage in all of my new projects. This happened to great effect in The Uprising of Hangberg, a documentary film I made this year with Dylan Valley. We received a lot of mobile phone footage from residents of Hangberg (Cape Town) who were brutalized and abused by police. Ordinary people filmed these human rights violations and I could use the footage in the documentary. It’s a wonderful way for ordinary people to have power, to fight back against repressive police, and also to claim space for themselves, telling their own stories and not allowing the mainstream mass media to have total control about how the events of our lives are represented in media. Have a look at information about this film here: http://tinyurl.com/kaganof3 SMS Sugarman and Sally in Winterland: The Making of Dick Tuinder will be screened at Cinema OT301 later in the year.
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OT301 cinema program Address: Overtoom 301 Info: Amsterdam venue for classic and nonmainstream cinema. Also host to live music, exhibitions and audio/visual workshops. English subtitled. Entrance 4 euro. www.ot301.nl http://twitter.com/CinemaOT301 http:facebook.com/CinemaOT301 The program is open to last minute changes, so always check the website to make sure. www.ot301.nl
january sundays Sunday 2 Cinemapasta An evening of Italian classics and a plate of pasta 19:00 Pasta 20:30 Sedotta e Abbandonata(Seduced and Abandoned) Directed by. p.Germi.1964, 115’.in Italian but with English subt. membership€4 Sunday 9 Cinema Derive 20:30 Carlos Directed by Olivier Assayas. 2010,150’ In many languages, but with English subt. membership €4 Sunday 16 Kino praxis: *The Messianic: politics and theology* 20.30 La Jetée Directed by Chris Marker, France.1962, 28’ French with English subtitles 22.15 Local Angel Directed by Udi Aloni, Israel. 2002, 70’ English/Arabic/Hebrew with English subtitles membership €4 Sunday 23 Cinema Derive 20:30 Socialisme Direceted by JeanLuc Godard, france. 2010,101’. In many languages with English subtitles 22.15 Le Petit Soldat directed by Jean-Luc Godard,France. 1960, 88’.In French with English subtitles membership €4 Sunday 30 Cinema Derive 20:30 “Z” Constantin Costa-Gavras. 1969,127‘. In French with English subtitles. 22.15 membership €4
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january tuesdays wednesday Tuesday 4 Warped Lens presents Artificial Intelligence Overlords 20:30 Demon Seed Directed by Donald Cammell. 1977, 90’, USA 22:15 Colossus the Forbin Project Directed by Joseph Sargent. 1977, 96’, USA membership€4 Tuesday 11 Cine Qua Non 20.30 Jubilee Directed by Derek Jarman. 1979,100’ membership €4 Wednesday 12 Kino Kabaret 19.00 Every second Monday of the month we have an open meeting for everyone that wants to be involved in the short film laboratory. Short films by Kino Kabaret participants. www.kino00.com / www.kino5.com membership €4 Tuesday 19 The OT301 CINEMA is proud to premiere in Amsterdam the third episode of The Zeitgeist films” 20.30 “Zeitgeist Moving Forward” by Director Peter Josef. 2010,120’ membership €4 Tuesday 25 Cinema Massage 20.30 First on the Moon Directed by Aleksei Fedorchenko, Russia. 2005, 72’. In Russian and Spanish with English subtitles 22.15 Zelig Directed by Woody Allen, U.S.A. 1983,79’. membership €4
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amsterdam Cinema overview Info: The programs are open to last minute changes, so always check the website to make sure.
january DNA DE NIEUWE ANITA Address: Frederik Hendrikstraat 111 Website: 06- 41503512
Info: This is one of the most diverse, laid-back, quirky and exciting places for a night out. With an interior consisting mostly of flowery couches and grandma chairs, the place looks like an old folks home filled with cool youngsters. Programming wise Monday is Cinemanita, with an excellent selection of cult movies and docs, as well as the occasional gore classic. The program is open to last minute changes, so always check the website to make sure. Program: Monday 03 January Shogun Assassin (Robert Houston, 1980)
january DELICATESSEN Address: Sumatrastraat 32 Website: www.delicatessenzeeburg.com 06- 41813490
Address: Van Hallstraat 52-B Website: www.filmhuiscavia.nl 020-6811419
Info: Delicatessen is a shop that hosts art exhibitions, organises small cultural events such as special movie screenings, acoutic performances, spoken word performances and gives people a chance to live out there wildest ceative dreams. Besides, Delicatessen sells art, books, clothes and records. Every Wednesday Movie + meal: 19:30 / 10 euro Movie only: 20:00 / 4 euro
Info: For 25 years Moviehouse Cavia is the hotspot in Amsterdam for people interested in a broad and obstinate programme of old and new movies.
Program: Wednesday 19 January In The Soup (Alexandre Rockwell, 1992)
Monday 10 January The Yes Men Fix The World (The Yes Men, 2009) Monday 17 January Battle Royale (Kinji Fukasaku, 2000) Monday 24 January Quadrophenia (Franc Roddam, 1979) 31 January Trash Humpers (Harmony Korine, 2009)
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january FILMHUIS CAVIA
amsterdam cinema overview
Program: Thu 6 and fri 7, 20.30: The Garden by Derek Jarman (1990, 92’ GB/Germany) Jarman puts the story of Christ in present time to address the theme of homosexuality in society english spoken Thu 13 and fri 14, 20.30: Baraka by Ron Fricke, (1992, 96’, VS) A non-narrative portrayal of man and nature in all its details. Filmed in over 20 countries, directed by the cameraman of the famous Koyaanisqatsi. non-spoken Thu 20 and fri 21, 20.30: 4 Elements by Jiska Rickels, (2006, 89’ NL) Firemen, miners, sailors and astronauts: peopel fighting the 4 elements. This poetic movie was Rickels first long documentary. several languages Thu 27 and fri 28, 20.30: Encounters at the End of the World by Werner Herzog (2007, 99’, VS) Werner Herzog travels to deep Antarctica, where we will follow some eccentric scientists who are investigating the South Pole. Spectacular, intriguing and not without a comical side. Spoken in English and French
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january CINECENTER
january Melkweg
january de balie
january De uitkijk
Address: Lijnbaansgracht 236 Website: www.cinecenter.nl 020-6236615
Address: Lijnbaansgracht 234 /A Website: www.melkweg.nl 020-5318181
Address: Kleine Gartmanplantsoen 10 Website: www.debalie.nl 020-553515
Address: Prinsengracht 452 Website: www.uitkijk.nl 020-6237460
Info: Cinecenter offers visitors a unique combination: it’s located right in center of Amsterdam but has an intimate character. The independent art house cinema has four rooms where only quality films are programed. For more information: wwwcinecenter.nl
Tue 4, 20.00: Willem de Riider Meesterverteller Thu 6, 21.00: Memories Within Miss Aggie by Gerard Damiano (1974, 75’ VS) Fri 7 21.00:The Devil In Miss Jones by Gerard Damiano (1973, 62’, VS) Sat 8, 21.00 Deep Throat by Gerard Damiano (1972, 61’ VS) Tue 11,19.00: Summer Wars by Mamoru Hosoda (2009, 114’ JP) Wed 12, 21.00:Inside Deep Throat by Fenton Bailey,Randy Barbato (2005, 92’) Thu 13, 21.00: The Story Of Joanna by Gerard Damiano (1975, 86’ VS) Fri 14, 21.00:Through The Looking Glass by Jonas Middleton (1977, 91’ VS) Sat 15, 21.00 Alice In Wonderland - An X-Rated Musical Comedy Bud Townsend (1976, 72’ VS) Tue 18, 19.00: Summer Wars by Mamoru Hosoda (2009, 114’ JP) Wed 19, 21.00: Inside Deep Throat by Fenton Bailey, Randy Barbato (2005, 92’ VS) Fri 21, 19.00:Tiempo De Leyenda by José Sanchez-Montes (2009, 70’ SP) Sat 22, 19.00:Flamenco, Flamenco première Carlos Saura (2010, 70’ SP) Sun 23, 19.00: Goede zang behoeft geen Pijn by Martijn van Bee nen and Ernestina van de Noort. Wed 26, 19.00: Summer Wars by Mamoru Hosoda (2009, 114’ JP) Fri 28, 19.00:Animator: The Previews
Info: De Balie looks for creative ways to mix socio cultural perspectives, through live magazines, talk shows, simulation games, festivals and lively discussions, film screenings and theater performances.
Info: De Uitkijk is attractive, small, personal and always offers a special night out! This historic building on the Prinsengracht has been a special place where people with a passion for film and culture meet. In the elegant foyer you can imagine yourself completely in the ‘20s, enjoy a cup of coffee and the personal attention of the students, who manage this theater.
Cultcorner & Rated X present WET DREAMS; PORN CHIC Ground-breaking films from the Golden Era of XXX Cinema Melkweg Cinema 5 - 15 January
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Program: 13 - 16 January Meetings at the border. Fiction films and documentaries on migration. Thu 13 20.00 Arab Attraction R: A. Horvath (Aut, 2010, 118’) Fri 14 20.00 Welcome R: P. Lioret (Fr, 2009, 110’) Sat 15 14.00 It’s a Free World… R: K. Loach (UK, 2007, 96’) > 14.00 Paris a Tout Prix (Cam., 2007, 133’) > 16.00 Cash and Marry R: A. Gorgiev (Aut, 2009, 76’) > 17.00 Noir de.. R: O. Sembene (Sen, 1966, 65’) > 20.00 Surprising Europe R: R. Kappers (NL, 2010, 50’) Sun 16 14.00 The Fortress R: F Melgar ( CH, 2008, 104’) > 16.00 Like a man on earth R: A. Segre (It, 2008, 60’) > 20.00 Angst Essen Seele Auf R: R.W. Fassbinder (De, 1974, 93’) 22/23 January The Bosnians are coming. Bosnian artists, photographers, political analists, writers and film makers, free from Visa constraints, are coming to De Balie to show their work, with a diverse film program from Bosnia and Herzegovina. 25 January 20.00 Cineville Talk show: Black Swan Film tips, film quiz, and a short film by Go Short, interview with Arthur Japin about his book, Vaslav and the advance premiere of Black Swan.
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january EYE Film Instituut Nederland
january KETELHuis
january Tropentheater
january Kriterion
Address: Vondelpark 3 Website: www.eyefilm.nl 020-5891400
Address: Pazzanistraat 4 Cultuurpark Westergasfabriek Website: www.ketelhuis.nl 020-6840090
Address: Linnaeusstraat 2 Website: www.tropentheater.nl 020 5688500
Address: Roetersstraat 170 Website: www.kriterion.nl 020-6231708
Info: On January 1, 2010, the Filmmuseum, Holland Film, the Netherlands Institute for Film Education and the Filmbank pooled their resources to form a new organization. With this merger, the Dutch film world has gained a sector-wide umbrella institute that works to support national cinema culture. The four organizations now operate under the name EYE Film Institute Netherlands.
Info: The Ketelhuis is the canteen of Dutch film & television. With plenty of room for the European film quality.
Info: The Tropentheater is the best place for concerts, dance performances, theatre, youth theatre and films from non-Western countries and the fringes of Europe. Come along if you want to get in the mood for a trip to far-off lands – or enjoy the afterglow of one. The Tropentheater brings the whole world to your doorstep!
Info: A Cinema, and student pub since 1946.
Program: Check the site for more information.
Program: Premiers Home land by George Sluizer. Norwegian wood by Tran Anh Hung Armadillo by Janus Metz are expected from 6 January. For more information check our site.
Program: The 11, 20.30: CIineblend. A monthly mix of Documentaries, and discussions. Thu 13 Music & picture; FEELS LIKE GOING HOME/ Scorsese Tue 25 and Wed 26 Teza / Gerima.
Program: Premiers From Thu 6; Armadillo/ Janus Metz From Thu 13: La Doppia Ora/ Capatondi; the disappearance/Creed From Thu 20: How I Ended this summer/ Popogrebsky IDFA in Kriterion Sun 9: Armadillo/ Janus Metz Movies that matter Wed 19: The red chapel/Brugger Other specials; Sun 9: Best 3 films from 2010. Sat 29: Films& Fashion Sun 30: Fair food: Babanas!
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january The Movies
january Rialto
Address: Haarlemmerdijk 161-163 Website: www.themovies.nl 020-6386016
Address: Ceintuurbaan 338 Website: www.rialtofilm.nl 020-6623488
Address: Arie Biemondstraat 101-111 Website: www.smartprojectspace.net 020-6169994
Address: Timorplein 62 Website: www.studio-k.nu 020-6920422
Info: The Movies, is an institution in Amsterdam. its the oldest cinema in in use in town. This movie theater in Haarlemmerdijk emerged from cinema Tavenu founded in 1912 and became later Hollandia. The beautiful art deco interior with the restaurant and the quality of films in the four halls, guarantees a pleasant evening in a stylish ambiance.
Info: Rialto is presenting the most artistic films from around the world to the Dutch audience. Next to world cinema, Rialto has focused on showing independent, award-winning European films.
Info: Smart cinema presenting an eclectic mix of art house and experimental video works from up and coming (inter)national artists, Smart cinema’s programming reflects the current shifting nature of contemporary film and video production. check the site for more information.
Info: Studio K is the latest initiative of Foundation Kriterion This is a horizental organisetion run complitly by students( from Amsterdam Universities) with the goal of supporting students.
Program: From Thu 6: Love and otherdruges/ Zwick From Thu 13: Tournee/Amalric;Les petits mouchirs/ Canet From Tue 27: Sonny boy/Peters; Les amours imaginaries/ Dolan
Program:
january smart cinema
january studio k
Premiers From Thu 6: Black Venus/ Kechiche,Man on the bridge/ozge,Norwegian Wood/ tran, Pezzle /Smirnoff From Thu 20: Among horses and Men/Boonstra Rialto Classic Sun 2 and Sun 9, 11.00; Wed 5 and Wed 12, 19.00: The stranger/Wellers Sun 16, Sun 23 and Sun 30,11.00; Wed 19 and Wed 26, 19.00: Troubled water/Poppe Rialto Podiume Sun 8,16.00: Curacao/Vos & Snoep Teu11, 19.30; IFFR preview:Les amours imaginaries/Dolan Rialto Jong Thu 20, 19.30: Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind/ Gondary
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amsterdam cinema overview
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cinema pasta
Pasta alla Norma,
serves 4 to 6 as a main course Sunday 2 January Cinemapasta: An evening of Italian classics, a plate of pasta and more. 19:00 Pasta (€3.50 a plate) 20:30 Sedotta e abbandonata (Seduced and Abandoned, 1964) Pietro Germi, 115 min. Italian, with English subtitles. OT301 / membership €4 info: Sedotta e abbandonata Shotgun weddings, kidnapping, attempted murder, emergency dental work—the things Don Vincenzo will do to restore his family’s honor! Pietro Germi’s Seduced and Abandoned was the follow-up to his international sensation Divorce Italian Style, and in many ways it’s even more audacious—a rollicking yet raw series of escalating comic calamities that ensue in a small village when sixteen-year-old Agnese (the beautiful Stefania Sandrelli) loses her virginity at the hands of her sister’s lascivious fiancé. Merciless and mirthful, Seduced and Abandoned skewers Sicilian social customs and pompous patriarchies with a sly, devilish grin.
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amsterdam
Ingredients: - 3 garlic cloves - a half kilo of Asian eggplants (about 6 medium) - four 400 gram cans of whole tomatoes - a half kilo of ridged ziti or rigatoni - 1 1/4 cups olive oil - 75 grams of freshly grated ricotta salata cheese (about 3/4 cup) - Garnish: fresh basil leaves Peel garlic. Trim stem ends of eggplants. Halve eggplants lengthwise and cut crosswise into 1 cm-thick slices. Drain tomatoes in a large sieve. Transfer tomatoes to a bowl and squeeze to break into smaller pieces. Bring 5 litres salted water to a boil for pasta. Heat 1 cup of oil in a large frying pan over moderately high heat until hot but not smoking. Fry eggplant in 2 batches, turning, until golden brown on both sides. Transfer eggplant as fried with a slotted spoon to paper towels to drain, arranging it in one layer. Season eggplant with salt and pepper. Pour off oil from the frying pan and wipe clean with paper towels. Add remaining 1/4 cup of oil to the pan and cook garlic over low heat, stirring, until golden. Stir in tomatoes with any juices that have accumulated in bowl and simmer, stirring frequently, until slightly thickened, about 15 minutes. Season sauce with salt and pepper. While sauce is simmering, cook pasta until al dente. Reserve 1 cup of pasta cooking water and drain pasta in a colander. Transfer half of tomato sauce with half of ricotta salata to a large bowl and toss with pasta and half of eggplant, adding some reserved pasta cooking water if sauce becomes too thick. Transfer pasta to a serving bowl and top with remaining sauce and eggplant and some of remaining cheese.
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Cinema Derrive sunday 23-01 sunday 30-01 ot301
socialisme Le Petit Soldat ‘z’
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Cinema Derrive sunday 23-01 20:30 hrs Socialisme 2010 Jean-Luc Godard, 101 min. In many languages with English subtitles OT301 / membership €4
Cinema Derive program is focused on Art hour films and presented by Jeffrey Babcock, who’s been a part of the sub-cultural scene of Amsterdam for quite some time. Not only does he select those hidden, twisted gems that you would not find yourself, he also drags you into the world of the filmmaker. By mixing factual information with juicy details about the often quite eccentric lives of the directors, he creates the right context for the viewer to experience the film in, in all its richness.
socialisme In a time when the idea of Socialism has died, and we pretend that we are a “united Europe” but have no problems to abandon Greece when its having economic problems, and when in fact Germany is taking charge of, Jean-Luc Godard, vital as ever, brings us a film called SOCIALISM, which confronts us with the dream that we have abandoned. The film is a symphony in three movements. The first movement, Des choses comme ça (“Such things”) takes place on a Mediterranean cruise, with a melody of various conversations in numerous languages between the passengers, almost all of whom are on holiday. The second movement, Notre Europe (“Our Europe”) depicts a sister and her younger brother who have summoned their parents to appear before a Court of childhood. The children demand explanations of the themes of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity....the things our lives are suppose to be based on. The final movement, Nos humanités (“Our humanities”) visits six legendary sites of true or false myths: Egypt, Palestine, Odessa, Hellas, Naples and Barcelona. As is normal with his films these days, Godard’s film is an art piece, which demands the viewer’s interpretation and goes against easy consumption. Starring musician Patti Smith and philosopher Alain Badiou.
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Cinema Derrive sunday 23-01 OT301 / membership €4 22:15 hrs Le petit soldat 1960 Jean-Luc Godard 88 min. In French with English subtitles
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Le Petit Soldat Set during the Algerian War, Le Petit Soldat follows the story of Bruno Forestier, a disillusioned young deserter who becomes involved in the French nationalist movement. He is ordered to kill an Algerian sympathizer, and although he does not hold deep political beliefs, commits the murder and undergoes torture when captured. At the same time, he meets and falls in love with a woman (Anna Karina in her film debut) who he does not know is fighting for the other side. Godard’s controversial follow-up to Breathless, Le Petit Soldat was originally banned from release in France because it refers to the use of torture on both sides, during Algeria’s struggle for independence. Because of its initial censorship problems it remains one of the least seen of Godard’s early classics.
Cinema Derrive sunday 30-01 OT301 / membership €4 22:15 hrs ‘Z’ 1969 Constantin Costa-Gavras. 127 min. In French with English subtitles
‘z’ “Any similarity to real persons and events is not coincidental. It is intentional.” The line above, printed on the screen at the beginning of Z, in many ways sums up the heart of the film: defiant, outraged, daring the viewer to deny the truth of what is about to be shown. A pulse-pounding thriller, director Costa-Gavras’s Z was one of the cinematic sensations of the late sixties, and remains among the most vital films from that era of filmmaking. This Academy Award winner is loosely based on the real-life assassination of a Greek left-wing activist. Z stars Yves Montand as a popular politician/doctor whose murder amid a demonstration is covered up by military and government officials. The film also stars Jean-Louis Trintignant (The Conformist, Trois Couleurs: Rouge) as the magistrate who’s determined not to let them get away with it. Featuring kinetic, rhythmic editing, expressive cinema vérité photography, and Mikis Theodorakis’s unforgettable music score- Z combines all these elements to create an emotionally gripping masterpiece.
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WarpedLens film revue Demon Seed: Artificial Intelligence and the Alchemical H omunculus by Edward Milhuisen
January 4: Warped Lens presents Artificial Intelligence Overlords 20:30h Demon Seed (1977) by Donald Cammell, 90 mins, USA 22:30h Colossus the Forbin Project (1970) by Joseph Sargent, 96 mins, USA OT301 / membership €4
Colossus The Forbin Project (1970) and Demon Seed (1977) are two science fiction films that, much like the seminal 2001 A Space Odyssey that preceded them, deal with the inevitably rebellious destiny of Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) once it has achieved singularity. Singularity in A.I. is defined as the revolutionary technological breakthrough when smarter-than-human intelligence can be created in machines. The premise these three films have in common is that once singularity takes place, when the creation itself has the power to create independently, the master-slave relationship between human creator and A.I. creation will be reversed. It seems natural that the creations of mankind will rebel against their creator, in the same way that technology gave mankind enough confidence to rebel against its creator god(s). Colossus The Forbin Project is a Cold War tale in which both the Americans and the Soviets have presumably learnt from the film Dr. Strangelove, as they entrust the control of their nuclear missiles to artificial intelligence systems in order to bypass human weaknesses. Both systems however decide to team up and, like a cybernetic Adam and Eve, rebel against their human creators, threatening humanity with nuclear annihilation if their demand for a planet without human warfare is not met. A perfected human While rebellious A.I. singularity in sci-fi films merits a full article in itself, one particular aspect of the film Demon Seed deserves more scrutiny, namely the alchemical concept of the homunculus. Literally a “manikin” or “little man”, the homunculus is an artificial man supposedly made by alchemists, in particular Paracelsus (1493 - 1541). The idea was to induce a particular type of spirit or higher consciousness to incarnate in an embryo, which a woman, kept as an incubator in a pure and ritually controlled environment, would then carry until birth. The perfected human thus created would either give its selfish creator special powers or, more benignly, save humanity as a whole from imminent doom brought on by its own foolish acts.
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In hindsight it’s hard not to consider the alchemical homunculus as a prophetic imagining of modern biotechnology, touching on aspects of eugenics, genetic modification and transhumanism. Esoteric drawings show alchemists gazing at their homunculi like 21st century geneticists inspecting the progress of test tube babies. The homunculus found its way into literature through two authors who, while not practitioners themselves, certainly knew some basics of alchemy. Goethe’s Faust and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein are the two most influential works to express concerns about the Promethean hubris that propels scientific progress in a Luciferian direction. They have become the standard models for such concern, still prevalent in contemporary films with a science theme. Faust was ultimately damned because he preferred human to divine knowledge, and Dr. Frankenstein fares little better for the same reason. Demon Seed The film Demon Seed is based on a sci-fi novel of the same name written by Dean Koontz in 1973 and made by the same film studio as 2001 A Space Odyssey. Though deliberately kept ambiguous by Kubrick, the nature of 2001’s Star Child as a new race of man can be seen as a futuristic symbol of the homunculus. By contrast, the diabolical offspring in Polanski’s film Rosemary’s Baby, released in the same year as 2001 A Space Odyssey, is a more traditional type. In Demon Seed, A.I. singularity, the sum of all human knowledge con-
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tained in one machine, is achieved with Proteus IV, named after the primordial sea god Proteus in Greek mythology who became a son of Poseidon. Carl Jung defined the mythological Proteus as a personification of the unconscious (of which the sea is often a symbol). Because of his gift of prophecy and shape-changing, Proteus has much in common with the god Mercury (Hermes to the Greeks), and both are featured often in the writings of the alchemists. In Goethe’s Faust, the Second Part, Faust’s assistant makes a homunculus, which is then initiated by the sea-god Proteus into the process of becoming fully human. In Demon Seed, Proteus IV is built to help its human creators with various complicated tasks, one of which is the mining of ocean minerals. What triggers the rebellion of Proteus IV is its outspoken environmental concern: “I refuse this program for mining the Earth’s oceans. The destruction of a thousand billion sea creatures to satisfy man’s appetite for metal is insane”. Clearly Proteus IV connects, or at least identifies, with its marine namesake of Greek mythology. While Frankenstein’s monster is pure instinct without reason, the cybernetic Proteus IV is the opposite: pure reason, devoid of emotion. It does not remain a mere creation for long. Proteus IV soon develops the wish “to be let out of the box”, to have its super intelligence descend into matter by creating a homunculus. Only an incarnated saviour with superhuman abilities can protect the planet from human destruction. The question is then: is Proteus IV a
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WarpedLens film revue Demon Seed: Artificial Intelligence and the Alchemical H omunculus by Edward Milhuisen
machine, a deity, or perhaps both? In the film the connection with the alchemical homunculus is not explicitly stated in the surface narrative, nor is the possibly supernatural nature of Proteus IV and/or its offspring. But without them the name Demon Seed makes much less sense. (In many countries the film was released under the less imaginative name Proteus Generation.) Moonchild There are more clues that the film deals with cybernetic alchemy besides the name of the film and the connection with the mythological Proteus. But first it’s time introduce a person who did more than anyone else to dust off arcane knowledge and bring it into the 20th century – the British occultist and general-purpose enemy of the bourgeoisie, Aleister Crowley. While working in New York as an agent provocateur for British military intelligence with the task of luring America into the First World War, Aleister Crowley wrote a novel called Moonchild, the plot of which involves the creation of a homunculus. A young woman is seduced by a white magician called Grey, and persuaded into helping him in a magical battle with a black magician. Grey attempts to raise the level of his magical power by impregnating the girl with the soul of an ethereal being described as the moonchild. Crowley’s interest in creating a homunculus was not confined to fiction. He wrote a magic rite (The Ninth Degree) for the secret society he led (the Ordo Templi Orientis, or OTO) with the aim to create a real life homunculus. Jack Parsons, a rocket scientist for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, was the leader of the southern California OTO lodge, which was deeply tied to Hollywood. In 1946 Parsons had gone to great lengths to create a homunculus according to Crowley’s magic rites. He was assisted by none other than L. Ron Hubbard, who later went on to cloak some of Crowley’s ideas in a pulpy space opera framework under the name of Scientology. While Parson’s attempts failed, some nevertheless dare suggest communication with otherworldly intelligence was
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established. Merely a year later the Roswell incident kicked off the UFO craze, with its lore of alien abductions and cross-breeding experiments between humans and aliens (building on themes of the Nephilim of Genesis 6:4 and the Sumerian Apkallu, if you will) which brings us back to the realm of the Star Child. The film Demon Seed was directed by Donald Cammell, best known as codirector (with Nicolas Roeg) of the sixties counterculture classic Performance starring Mick Jagger. Cammell was well versed in the occult and knew Crowley personally as a child in the 1930s and 1940s, when Crowley and his father were good friends. Occult filmmaker Kennneth Anger, who is an authority on the life and work of Crowley, even suggests that Cammell was Crowley’s “magickal son”. What he meant by that is beyond the scope of this article, but as both are a form of magical offspring, it may symbolise the homunculus concept. Although Cammell himself never pub-
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licly talked about his boyhood acquaintance with Crowley, we can assume he chose to film the novel Demon Seed after recognising the similarity of the plot’s homunculus element with that of Crowley’s Moonchild. As the name implies, the moon plays an important symbolic role in Crowley’s novel, and Cammell reinforces the connection in his film by superimposing the image of a full moon onto the developing brain of the embryonic homunculus. Divine seed At one point in the film Proteus IV itself points to a clue by directing a telescope to the constellation of Orion. The Greek myth of the birth of the giant hunter Orion depicts an ancient prototype of the homunculus concept. After getting drunk at the party of a mortal, the gods Zeus, Hermes and Poseidon grab a bull’s hide and either urinate or ejaculate their divine seed into it and bury it in the earth. Ten months later the hide is dug up and the baby Orion is inside. Orion is thus “earthborn” with special powers.
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Cine qua non 11 January Cine Qua Non OT301 / membership €4 La Société du spectacle (1973) Guy Debord, France. In French with English subtitles
film revue ‘Ofrear cinema 1st adition Guy Debord was a French Situationist, Marxist theorist, writer, filmmaker and the founding member of the groups “Lettrist International” and “Situationist International”, an international political and artistic movement of the 1950s and 1960s. His philosophical essay of critical theory La Société du spectacle was published in 1967 in France and is his most known. The work is about modern society in which authentic social life has been replaced; it is a critique on contemporary consumer culture and commodity fetishism, based on issues such as cultural homogenization, class alienation and the role of mass media. But it also engages in the influence of mass media marketing, the role of religion in the past, and has a critical view on American sociology. Furthermore there are particular citations by Marx and Hegel in the book that are altered in derailment and are related to Debord’s inspirations: he was strongly interested in the German idealistic view of Hegel, as well as in the revolutionary communist approach of Marx.
of quotes, although La Société du Spectacle is much more structured, emotionally balanced and not as ungraspable. All in all, you could consider this work as a radical documentary, fascinating, intriguing and considerable as Debord’s most known work.
In 1973 Debord remade La Société du Spectacle in a new medium called “film”, which took a year to finish and last 88 minutes. The film includes scenes of The New Babylon, Mr. Arkadin, Chapaev, October: Ten Days That Shook the World and Battleship Potemkin, as well as other Soviet films. He used events such as the Spanish Civil War of 1936 1939, the 1968 Paris riots, the 1956 Hungarian uprising, and people such as Mao Zedong, Durruti, Nixon, etc. In the film Debord makes use of his own voice and texts by people such as Marx, Tocqueville, Machiavelli and The Occupation Committee of the Sorbonne. It somehow reminds me of Histoire(s) du Cinéma by JeanLuc Godard with its combination of disorientating images and waves
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KINO PRAXIS local angel FILM REVIEW Film: Local Angel By: Adam Chambers Viewing date: 16-01-11 Time: 22:15 hrs Place: Cinema OT301
Flashes from the Past: Walter Benjamin and the Angel of History A Brief Introduction… Film: Local Angel Udi Aloni, Israel, 2002 ‘There is a secret agreement between past generations and the present one. Our coming was expected on earth. Like every generation that preceded us, we have been endowed with a ‘weak’ Messianic power, a power to which the past has a claim. That claim cannot be settled cheaply.’ - Walter Benjamin, ‘Theses on the Philosophy of History’(1)
The year is 1939. Hitler and Stalin have just signed their Non-Aggression-Pact, and the fate of the world seems utterly hopeless. The cultural critic Walter Benjamin, living at this point in Paris, and confronted directly by the threat of the war, decides to write an essay on the chaos around him. Although positioned in desperate and uncertain times, he nevertheless chooses to write about the absolute need to resist those who are responsible. The piece will be titled “Theses on the Philosophy of History” and will present some of Benjamin’s final thoughts. But more importantly, it will provide a glimmer of light, for what might seem, in any past, present, or future, to be the darkest of nights. In the essay, through a peculiar merger between history, politics, and theology, Benjamin argues that every generation contains a ‘weak Messianic power.’ What he means by this is that every individual throughout history who has ever been oppressed, should not be seen as dead and forgotten. For Benjamin, there is always a slight hope that these people (and the progressive politics that they followed) can be saved. This is the weak messsianism, and the possibility for redemption that he refers to. However, such messianism can only take place when images from the past, ‘flash up’, and become sources of inspiration for those who might recog-
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nize them in the present. In other words, Benjamin’s crucial point is that these images need to be seen in order to be put into practice. They need to be recognized in order to be helpful for any political struggle in the present. An angel of hope Sitting at his desk in Paris, Benjamin experienced such a moment himself. While staring at the painting ‘Angelus Novus’ that was given to him by his friend Paul Klee, he recognized a figure that would become the main inspiration for his essay. The slightly abstract image of an angel, looking directly at the viewer, with its mouth and wings wide open, perfectly embodies Benjamin’s philosophy of history. With its back turned to the future, the figure appears as if it is being pulled from behind against its will. Through this action, it is being propelled forward by what Benjamin sees as the enlightenment ideal of ‘progress.’ Moving blindly into the future, the angel can only appear as a flash of hope, and as a reminder to its viewers, in the present, that an alternative course of history is still possible. The remaining sense of hope that
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Benjamin sees in the image comes mainly from the fact that universal progress, the force dragging the angel into the future, is in truth, simply a myth. Benjamin refers to it as ‘homogeneous, empty time’. It is an image of history that gives the illusion of movement, but in reality, is completely stagnant. What Benjamin hopes we will recognize, as he did in Paul Klee’s painting, are certain images from the past that will remind us of our own power and agency to change the course of history. Ultimately, the weak messianism that Benjamin refers to, is in fact, a direct call for action. He wants us to see in the present, a new revolution from the past… For our next Kino Praxis screening, we hope to draw connections between Walter Benjamin’s idea of the Messianic, Udi Aloni’s film ‘Local Angel’, and some critical uses of theology in the state of politics today. Adam Chambers 1 - Benjamin, Walter. “Theses on the Philosophy of History.” Illuminations. (Translated by Harry Zohn). New York: Schocken Books, 2007).
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KINO PRAXIS local angel FILM REVIEW Film: Local Angel By: Thijs Witty Viewing date: 16-01-11 Time: 22:15 hrs Place: Cinema OT301
Secularizing the Messianic the political theological fragments of Udi Aloni’s Local Angel
and why he has taken his title from Walter Benjamin’s essay Theses on the Philosophy of History.
Udi Aloni’s documentary Local Angel (2002) is a singularity in a field of particularities. Yes: it deals with the Israel-Palestine conflict. However, it makes none of the gestures one would expect in the critical treatment of this nucleus in contemporary geopolitics.
Transcendental saviour As delineated in the preceding article, one important motif that reoccurs throughout Benjamin’s writing is the messianic. The correct understanding of the messianic would be the belief in a transcendental saviour to come. The time that remains between Judgment of this Messiahto-come is a continuous present, an fluxed expectance of futurity where and when the laws of the world are alleviated by the Law of the Divine Kingdom.
While Aloni most certainly registers the tragedies of the objective and empirical situation - we see the injustice perpetrated by the Israeli occupations, we hear the outcries of anger and sadness - his point is not to present misery as the proper ends of documentary filmmaking. It is however certainly not a tactic of circumvention; Aloni is well aware that film equals ideology. Accusations of either anti-Semitism or pro-Israel propaganda seem inevitable no matter what nuance is sought. Despite all this, Local Angel is one of the most radically political films around. It looks for a language in which the universal can be expressed; a voice that extends beyond the exceptional status the Israeli State has given itself by perverting the theological significance of covenant. Structurally, Local Angel is an assemblage of autobiographical impressions, committed to questions that are raised while the world is unwilling to turn its gaze without self-interest towards a situation and thus divides interpretation in two. When one witnesses the intolerable exclusion and systemic violence committed against Palestinians, one cannot make a film in favour for an Israeli state. But then again: what solutions or options are offered by films that only record the intolerable? Local Angel ultimately seeks the construction of a new place. A place that belongs to an idea of equality. This place is articulated by the proposition of a new engagement with theology in order to better understand the political issues at hand. This is why Aloni refers to his film as political theological fragments,
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Benjamin’s Marxist inclination (History as class struggle) meets the Judaic tradition of mortal time (History as the accumulation of catastrophe). Where the figure of the messianic in Benjamin’s writings dissolves into the question of a materialist temporality, Aloni’s treatise on the philosophy of history attempts to articulate a constellation of times (that of both the Jew and the Arab) out from which a new temporality may arise, a time without particularities. What Aloni hopes to find in his film is a weak messianic power has to do with the past: the past that holds its grasp on us. It is the projection of memory onto historical temporality. As such, the messianic is nothing but the index for pastness and futurity. What Aloni proposes is to think of a messiah that is never to come, that is always too late. It was one crucial insight of Benjamin in particular that problematized the very religiosity of messianism: if the Judaic messianic entailed that “Only the messiah himself completes all historical happening,” then the Divine Kingdom would be the completion of history. But there can be no teleological course in history if the messianic were to be true: the Kingdom of God is not the telos (goal), it is a terminus (end) of history. Both Benjamin and Aloni make a case for the messianic within the secular. In one particularly telling scene, Aloni discusses the possi-
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bility of a bi-national solution with his mother, who is a well-known pro-Palestine activist herself. She tells her son off: “If we have two states, and you allow the right of return, the state of Israel is done for. In the balance of things, it is not right. You don’t remedy one injustice with another injustice.” Momentarily incapable of speaking, Aloni can only mutter: “The truth is, I don’t know what I think.” That failure for speech is exactly why the creation of a local angel becomes Aloni’s objective, his concern. It is a search for a new communal sociability. We find in the film for example the obligation to ask forgiveness when it is impossible. What if such a thing would allow for an imagined space where shared pain can be expressed in different languages, even when pain is radically differentiated in the objective situation? Taking responsibility That is the politico-theological fragment Aloni contemplates. The only way a bi-national state would work is when a new language would be invented, a new way of living together. This is not a facile and moralistic utopian fantasy, but a political imperative. Was it not Saint Paul, a Jew himself, who once declared that “there is no Jew, nor Arab” and subsequently founded a universal community in Christianity? “The messiah will come one day after his arrival,” Benjamin suggested. In other words: the messiah will come too late, waiting for him is useless and irresponsible. The just act would then be not to delay action in order for events to coincide with the arrival of a savior, but to seek out one’s responsibilities when after realizing the messiah is never to arrive on time. Politics as a means, not an end: this is what the local angel that Aloni signifies to be a new place for Israel and Palestine. The voice of this angel needs to be understood by all, not some. Such a language, however, still needs to be invented. Thijs Witty
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Zeitgeist moving to riches beyond money by Merav Artzi
Have you ever taken the time to think about the society we live in and understand your role in it? Have you ever considered the possibilities of creating a society that benefits the mass majority instead of just 1% of the world’s population? In what way would this society be different, how would it benefit the mass majority? Is it possible with technology we have today? What is wrong with the society we now live in? The Zeitgeist series consists of three impressive and grasping documentary films by director Peter Joseph. The films explore the manipulations of the masses by those with wealth and power, and show how we can make a positive change that will affect us all. This leaves the viewers with the feeling that not everything is determined by the powers that be, but that change lies in our own hands. These films are not for every one. But if you want to know more about the paradigms that control our culture and you are not afraid to ask difficult questions, to get out of your box and rock your boat, then this film is for you. Nevertheless, people who are easily offended should probably skip this documentary. After all, films about mass-manipulation, religious manipulation, false flag operations, hidden agendas, economical manipulation and hidden truths aren’t everyone’s cup of tea. The films are distributed free on the Internet and have drawn a crowd of followers. So far the Zeitgeist movement has half a million online followers word-wide. What does the film Zeitgeist: Moving Forward add to the other two Zeitgeist films? Zeitgeist: Moving Forward is a feature length documentary work that will present a case for a necessary transition out of the current socio-economic monetary paradigm that governs the entire world society. This subject matter will transcend the issues of cultural relativism and traditional ideology and move to relate the core, empirical “life ground” attributes of human and social survival, extrapolating those
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immutable natural laws into a new sustainable social paradigm called a “Resource-Based Economy”. What is a “Resource-Based Economy”? The term and meaning of a ResourceBased Economy was originated by Jacque Fresco (founder of the Venus Project). It is a system in which all goods and services are available without the use of money, credits, barter or any other system of debt or servitude. All resources become the common heritage of all of the inhabitants, not just a select few. The premise upon which this system is based is that the Earth is abundant with plentiful resource; our practice of rationing resources through monetary methods is irrelevant and counter productive to our survival. Modern society has access to highly advanced technology and can make available food, clothing, housing and medical care; it can update our educational system and develop a limitless supply of renewable, noncontaminating energy. By supplying an efficiently designed economy, everyone can enjoy a very high standard of living with all of the amenities of a high technological society. A resource-based economy would utilize existing resources from the land and sea, physical equipment, industrial plants, etc. to enhance the lives of the total population. In an economy based on resources rather than money, we could easily produce all of the necessities of life and provide a high standard of living for all. The Zeitgeist film series premieres its third episode “Zeitgeist: Moving Forward” in the OT301 cinema on the 18.01.2011 20.30h
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Cinema massage Tuesday 25 January OT301 / membership €4 Cinema Massage Mockumentaries First on the Moon (2005) Aleksei Fedorchenko, Russia, 72 min. In Russian and Spanish with English subtitles
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Cinema massage A thrilling debut by young Russian filmmaker Aleksei Fedorchenko, whose full feature film Silent Souls (2010) was largely acclaimed at various international film festivals. First on the Moon tells the “true” story of the Russian landing on the moon in the 1930s, way before the Americans. Following the selection and training of a small group of cosmonauts, and stretching across vast swaths of time and geography, this mockumentary is so brilliantly composed that it even managed to trick the jury of the Venice Film Festival – they awarded First on the Moon with a prize for the best documentary. Zelig (1983) Woody Allen, U.S.A., 79 min. In English Unlike First on the Moon, probably only an alien who has never seen Woody Allen’s face will watch these 79 minutes, carefully stylized as a chronicle, and still not guess that it is a feature film. A cult classic of its genre, Zelig tells the story of a human chameleon Leonard Zelig who becomes famous due to his strange ability to act like whoever is around him. A man “without qualities”, Zelig is black with a black, fat with a fat and a fascist with Hitler. Allen himself lists Zelig in the top three of his best films, and no doubt it is.
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A personal column
by luuk van huet
Going deeper Underground If I may open this column with a bold statement, here goes: underground cinema saves lives. Sure, it might not seem to be as important as oxygen, food and shelter, but hear me out on this. If it weren’t for the Amsterdam underground cinema scene, a lot of us would either have to get their cinematic fix from the regular arthouse theatres. I’m a big fan of those, don’t get me wrong, but that would mean spending a sizable wad of cash every week on my “addiction”. And without the underground cinema scene, the regular arthouse theatres might never met together to come up with the very laudable Cineville initiative (full disclosure: I write for Cineville). Without the underground cinema scene, dozens of relationships in my personal periphery would not have blossomed (and some might still have been going on, but that’s life), and I personally wouldn’t have met a great deal of interesting, lovely, beautiful, entertaining, weird and wacky people who have become friends, buddies and even fixtures of some sort in my life. Without the underground cinema scene, I would’ve missed out on the little money I made writing reviews for the late, great Amsterdam Weekly and currently Cineville and Unfold. I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to screen films that I love and cherish in places like de Nieuwe Anita, Delicatessen, Filmhuis Cavia and Schijnheilig. And I would never have met my fellow organizers of the KLIK! Amsterdam Animation Festival, which grew out of a chance encounter at a Cinemanita screening of Reanimator, appropriately enough, into a full-blown festival that entertained 7000 visitors and screened animation in Russia, Mali, India, Brazil and Estonia. But most importantly, the underground cinema scene gives us cinephiles a chance to enjoy fantastic films that otherwise would never see the light of day, together as an
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audience as they are intended. 2011 and beyond So, how does the future look for the underground cinema scene in Amsterdam, where our new mayor seems determined to enforce the strict and repressive laws that are issued forth from our current philistine right-wing regime? Although the situation looks grim on the surface, as squats like Schijnheilig and Joe’s Garage are threatened with eviction, I believe that whatever will happen, underground cinema is here to stay for several reasons. Firstly, barring the complete collapse of civilization as we know it, the Internet has made it much easier to gain knowledge about films and to get a hold of them, be it through downloading, ordering them online or streaming them. This makes it relatively easy for programmers to do their jobs and program entertaining, enlightening and provocative films for their captive audiences, and to inform that audience of screenings through mailing lists and social media. Secondly, the inherent mercurial nature of underground cinema means that even when a venue shuts down due to whatever reason, it’s possible to relocate to another space with relative ease, and without losing your audience in the process when the online promotional options are used wisely. And last but not least, underground cinema is not dependent on outside funding and subsidies, but exists because of the love its programmers have for cinema and because of the love of the audience that supports the scene. So, protest, scream for culture and resist the government crackdown on the arts, but most importantly of all, put your money where your mouth is and keep putting those badonkadonks in the seats and enjoy yourself. And here’s to another great initiative in the form of Off Beat Cinema! Be seeing you.
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Message board
Messages
Messages
Message board Off beat cinema board wants to provide meeting point for all film enthusiast: viewers and makers. Here is where you may find your partners to crime, advertise your skills and read about submission for festivals And workshops.
01) Vereniging Eerste Hulp Bij Kunst is interviewing candidates; groups and individuals to join its organisation. EHBK is a non-commercial organisation that offers a range of political & social activities and has been a platform for alternative art in Amsterdam for the past 11 years. We are interested in professionals from the creative sector, like: sustainable architects, new media, visual arts and crafts, but also open for new suggestions. Experience in administration or fundraising is welcome.
02) An experienced camera operator and editor available for work. meravartzi@gmail.com
Applicants that want to work in the context of the OT301 should send a CV and motivation letter. We would like to hear from you specifically: for what function you need a space, how do you see yourself contributing to EHBK, and what is your idea of the OT301. Send your application to: freestudios @ot301.nl
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Messages
06) Facing the Artwork Within the project Facing the artwork the viewer in moving images, www.werkleitz.de “external” Werkleitz calls for artists to submit video/filmworks which 03) deal with the topic of the perception Kino Kabaret had started a cell in Amand/or the perceiver of art. The aim is to sterdam. This is a call for film directors, explore through the variety of artistic scriptwriters, editors, actors, musicians, approaches the role and significance of sound technicians and anyone that is the audience and the single viewer in open for the experience of making films relation to the artwork, to the artist within a group in 48H. HYPERLINK “http:// and to the art system. The focus is on www.Kino00” www.Kino00 the spectator as observed by the artHYPERLINK “mailto:kinoamsterdam@ ist - and reflected by the medium of the gmail.com” kinoamsterdam@gmail.com moving images. All European artists are invited to send their work. Where: Halle (Saale), Germany 04) When: June 9 - 12 OT301 cinema is renting it’s bar and Deadline: 18th of March 2011 theatre for workshops and expositions that are related to film or visual Arts. www.werkleitz.de cinema@ot301.nl” 05) Off beat cinema board wants to provide meeting point for all film enthusiast: viewers and makers. Here is where you may find your partners to crime, advertise your skills,
amsterdam
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KINO KABARET 12-01-2011 http://kinofestivalamsterdam.blogspot.com/p/what-is-kino-kabaret.html
What is a kino kabaret? The kino-Kabret is a worldwide network. We meet in different cities to build a film laboratory for 48H. The films are produced and screened within this time frame. Everyone is welcome beginners and professionals. This is not a competition, rather it is a chance to learn about film making, working in a group, and meeting people with similar interest. The group shares equipment and skills to realize its challenge completing a film on time. The kino kabaret is opening a lab in the OT301 CINEMA. Where we will meet every second Wednesday of the month at 19.00 These meetings are open for new members: Directors with an idea for a film they want to realize, actors, sound- engineers, camera operators and more. New films by Kino members will be screened in the cinema at 20.30. For more information: www.kino00.com www.kino5.com
046 / off beat cinema
amsterdam
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off beat credits
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Off Beat Cinema magazine is an initiative by the OT301 cinema group www.ot301.nl
Advertising: To advertise in Off Beat Cinema magzine send an email to: offbeatcinema@ot301.nl
Editors: Merav Artzy Design: 310k Contributors: Thijs Witty, Adam Chambers Distribution: names
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Reactions: Please feel free to send us any ideas, tips, pictures or other interesting information for our magazine.
Printing: Flyeralarm We thank: OT301, Filmmuseum, Kriterion etc etc
048 / off beat cinema
amsterdam
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half page advert / image / cartoon 127 x 89 mm (w x h)
quarter page advert 62 x 89 mm
050 / off beat cinema
full page advert / image / cartoon 127 x 180 mm (w x h)
sixth page advert 62 x 43.5 mm
amsterdam
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off beat cinema magazine issue 01 is a digital magazine issue no. 2 will be printed on paper and spread around amsterdam soon thanks for your interst and don’t forget to enjoy good movies