Plaat, Meter and Zwartjes made their first film in the sixties and are now still active. Inevitable as it may seem to reproduce reality in a photographic medium as film, the veterans Meter, Plaat and Zwartjes seem to resist just that. Plaat calls his films “exorcisms,” Meter talks about “a proposal to start perceiving reality differently,” and Zwartjes says, “the only useful answer to the humbug around you is art.” Their films address the viewer directly, without interference by word or narrative. With images they name the unnamable. Their instruments are the camera and the splicer. Their material is the celluloid. Their approach is intuitive. They love their medium. You can get to know them intimately by watching their produce after forty years of filmmaking. The styles of these three authors are as different as their personalities.
Barbara Meter (Tue 16 Sept)
Barbara Meter (1933) made her first short movie in 1967. Since then, she made a great number of experimental films, feature films and documentaries. Her ‘structural’ films make you aware of the material of the volatile medium, film. At the same time, her films are very personal and poetic.
Song for four hands (1970, 16mm, 4:00 min)
Departure on Arrival (1996, 16mm, 22:00 min)
Andante ma non troppo (1988. 16mm, 7:00 min)
In passing: Party (1985, 16mm, 20:00 min)
Penelope (1995, 16mm, 10:00 min)
Ariadne (2004, 35mm, 12:00 min)
Henri Plaat (Wed 17 Sept.)
Henri Plaat (1936) received his education at the predecessor to the current Rietveld Academy. Plaat combines a mild absurdum with documentary images he records on his travels through Europe, Asia, America and North Africa. Besides filming, he also paints, draws and makes collages..
Der Graf von Rü (1978, 16mm, 5:00 min)
Other thoughts ( 1989, 16mm, 10:00 min)
Return to Prestcold (1986, 16mm, 5:00 min)
Ladakh (1981, 16mm, 10:00 min)
Spurs of Tango (1980, 16mm, 32:00 min)
Postcards (1974, 16mm, 15:00 min)
Frans Zwartjes (Thu 18. Sept.)
Frans Zwartjes (1927) is filmmaker, musician, violinmaker, drawer, painter and sculptor. Zwartjes approaches the regular feature film the closest in his works. In his abstract films, actors are adorned with make-up and costumes and are put in a setting to enact a staged event. Sexuality, psychosis, cruelty, power and powerlessness are ever recurring themes in his films.
Sorbet III (1968, 16mm, 6:00 min)
Spectator (1970, 16mm, 11:00 min)
Living (1971, 16mm, 15:00 min)
Pentimento (1979, 16mm, 73:00 min)
Paul de Mol (Fri 19 Sept.)
Paul de Mol (1947) was a student of Frans Zwartjes and one of the first sculptors in the 60’s to make movies. He grew to be one of the style icons of Dutch experimental film. He is known to manipulate his (fysical) film with overexposure of light and double filming.
Ancientry (1969)
Oot oak aas (1969)
Sisyphus
Madseeing (1974)
Fragment of Murw
Fragment of remake Malander
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