A web-series that ventures on AN EXPEDITION THROUGH THE PROJECTION BOOTHS OF AMSTERDAM by Sofia Pires
for the Association of Moving Image Archivists (AMIA) Student Chapter at the University of Amsterdam https://amiastudentsuva.wordpress.com/
Amsterdam 2017 – 2018
Booth Diaries #1: Filmhuis Cavia amiastudentsuva.wordpress.com/2017/01/18/539 amiastudentsuva
January 18, 2017
December was the month to start our expedition through the projection booths of Amsterdam: nothing better to start things off than a non-profit, volunteer run cinema and cultural space imbued with the old-school spirit of the Amsterdam of the 1980s! Filmhuis Cavia has been up and running for over 30 years with a minimal budget thanks to the love, dedication and hard work of a relentless group of volunteers that love cinema and hold on to the do-it-yourself mindset that originated Filmhuis Cavia in the first place. The smallest cinema of Amsterdam, owing its name to the 40 lavish velvety green seats that make up the screening room, was founded in 1983 by a squatter’s movement. It remains a non-profit organization partially supported by Amsterdam’s West district. It is located on Van Hallstraat 52, on a low-key building accessible through a courtyard, on the first floor, just above a kick boxing gym.
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Film is, of course, at the heart of Filmhuis Cavia’s activities. Besides the weekly screenings, often screened in 16mm and 35mm film projectors, Filmhuis Cavia also runs film festivals, special film programs and itinerant screenings. Ronald Blazkowicz – an experimental filmmaker and volunteer at Cavia – was the man who showed us the booth and gave us a little insight into its long-standing operation and activities. The booth is of course a mirror image of the do-it-yourself environment of the rest of the space. Film posters and other serendipitous affiches cover the walls of the booth; the furniture is a motley assemblage of miscellaneous findings, each one bearing the charming aura of one of its kind objects that have survived oblivion; and even the tools of the craft of film screening appear to have been carefully assorted by the ventures of chance and shrewd recycling. Screening wise, Filmhuis Cavia currently operates with a high-definition digital projector, an Eiki EX-6100 16mm film projector, a portable Eiki EX-400P film projector used for outdoor screenings and a heavy-duty decommissioned 35mm film projector. The apparatus is complemented by a Cinemeccanica rewinder table, a couple of splicers and 16mm and 35mm lenses. Overall, we discovered that film is alive and kicking in this booth!
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Tot straks.
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Photos and Text by Sofia Pires.
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Booth Diaries #2: LAB amiastudentsuva.wordpress.com/2017/02/22/booth-diaries-2-lab amiastudentsuva
February 22, 2017
The year started full steam ahead as we continued tracking down the projection booths of Amsterdam! This time we headed to the old ‘Pathologisch Anatomisch Laboratorium’ on Arie Biedmondstraat 111 that is now home to a number of art related organisations. LAB Amsterdam is one of such organisations, designed to reunite film enthusiasts around through food and films. After extensive renovation work, LAB recently reopened as a twofold project that encompasses a cinema and a restaurant. The restaurant Strangelove already denounces this inextricable cinephilic association. LAB’s film program is rather diverse, far-ranging and covers a bit of everything from second run features, to art house films, documentaries and cult classics. To even, one of LAB’s most extraordinary events held on the last Friday of the month a ‘Straight to Video’ night where the most offbeat B-titles are screened in VHS to a bemused, but secretly riveted, audience of VHS connoisseurs and film buffs alike. 1/13
Willem Van Rossum, a former volunteer now head of film programming and an avid VHS collector, was kind enough to show us around the newly renovated premises. Enthusiastically Willem explained LAB ethos to make cinema fun again by combining food, cinema and to cultivate an experience. This is accomplished firstly by trying to give personalised introductions for most films which ‘gives a face to the cinema’ and shows that the staff and volunteers love and care for movies. Furthermore, The curators at LAB try to curate a programme that can be linked with bigger releases throughout the city by showing accompanying programmes that compliment what is being shown elsewhere. The projection booths at LAB currently host two screening rooms. The larger of the two ‘Zaal 1’ often shows second run films, special screenings, classics and documentaries. Willem’s “other office” is a fully equipped digital projection booth that comprises of a Dolby CP750 Digital Cinema Processor and a NEC DLP Projector. ‘Zaal 4’ is a smaller screening room and it is more oriented towards lesser digital files, Blu-ray’s and VHS screenings. It has a DLP projector, a rack with 3 Crown XLS1000 twochannel power amplifiers, a DENON player for Pro-res Blu-ray’s and a DENON VHS player. Zaal 4 is suitable for specialty screenings and smaller events. From our visit it was clear that it doesn’t matter which zaal you see a film in, the feeling of LAB is always intimate due to the enthusiasm of its staff and its eclectic programme. In conclusion, there is a strange love indeed running through this gezellig LAB, the love of merging two of the pastimes that (still) bring people together: that is, of course, sharing a meal and going to the movies. It looks like Netflix still can’t beat this!
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Tot straks! Text and Photos by Sofia Pires, additional text by Krystel Brown
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AMIA UvA amiastudentsuva.wordpress.com/2017/10/18/booth-diaries-3 amiastudentsuva
October 18, 2017
We couldn’t wrap up our year in Amsterdam without one final diary log from the projection booths of Amsterdam. Likewise, we headed to Lijnbaansgracht to find the welcoming arthouse cinema Cinecenter, tucked in between the now legendary popculture venue Melkweg and the always-lively Leidseplein. Cinecenter is an intimate arthouse cinema right in the center of Amsterdam that combines an independent and arthouse film programming with special English-subtitled screenings and film meet-ups directed to Amsterdam’s bursting community of expats. Cinecenter opened its doors for the first time in 1979 in a building originally designed by the architect Gerard de Klerk. In 2011, Cinecenter was renovated and it was in this year that the transition to fully digital projection took place. Whereas some of the previous analogue projectors have been put in storage elsewhere, one of them was donated to Filmhuis Cavia (a booth we have already visited). Currently, Cinecenter has four screening rooms, each one with a 1/15
unique touch. Whereas in some rooms you will find beautiful light designs and ambient sound, in others you will be greeted with a shadow game reminiscent of early cinema devices as you enter the room and you will be waved bye-bye with word “FIN” as you leave the screening room. The floor that connects all screening rooms is also nothing short of welcoming for a cinephile: with a vivid red tapestry of some of the most iconic eyes in the story of film (such as, for example, Alex de Large’s eye in “A Clockwork Orange”). Renske Diks was so kind as to show us around the two projection booths of Cinecenter. Starting has a cashier 8 years ago, Renske has done a bit of everything around the cinema and now she is indeed a full-fledge connoisseur of Cinecenter where she continues, to this day, to joggle different functions at the same time: she works as a cashier, at the tickets, as a programmer and projectionist, at the booth, among many other daily-goings on. Cinecenter is now a fully digital cinema, equipped with four Compact DLP Barco DP2K– 12C Alchemy Digital Cinema Projectors. The cinema has two projection booths to operate and control the four screening rooms. One of the projection booths is exclusive to “Zaal 4”, the smallest of the screening rooms of Cinecenter. The second projection booth is a larger room with three Barco Digital Cinema Projectors from which the remaining three screening rooms and their respective film programs are managed. With the desk, computer screen and large white boards it might well be implied that this is also Renske (partial) office. Overall, Cinecenter is an intimate and cosy cinema, with a longstanding independentcircuit film program! If you are craving some English subtitled films in Amsterdam and a community of expat film buffs to connect with, this is definitely the place to be! We hope to see you around!
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Tot straks! The University of Amsterdam AMIA Student Chapter
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All words, artwork and photos by Sofia Pires with support from Krystel Brown.
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