2021 is an exceptional year, bringing anniversaries for both IFFR (50) and Eye Filmmuseum (75). A great reason to celebrate the special relationship between these two institutions and their love of all things cinema. And how better to do so than with an anniversary exhibition? With this in mind, IFFR and Eye approached a number of significant film directors, asking them to create a work centred around cinema as a spatial experience. Jia Zhang-ke, Lucrecia Martel, Nanouk Leopold & Daan Emmen, Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese and Carlos Reygadas all picked up the gauntlet, and each has made an installation specially for Vive le cinéma! in which they seek out the boundaries both of their own work and film as an art form.
The idea that cinema can be more than a two-dimensional projection on a screen is as old as the medium itself. From its earliest days, filmmakers and artists have explored the language and possibilities of film, both on the big screen and beyond. This soon led to film being seen as the ‘seventh art’ among the modern art forms. This view of cinema has always been important to both IFFR and Eye. For example, the first director of the Filmmuseum, Jan de Vaal, organised screenings in Amsterdam’s Stedelijk Museum. Also telling in this respect are the immortal words of IFFR’s first festival director, Hubert Bals: “Film is cinema is art.”
Featuring five new works by true IFFR makers, Vive le cinéma! shows how relevant these words remain today, as well as how exciting it is to probe the possibilities of cinema in three-dimensional space. The exhibition is accompanied by a programme of films, discussions and other activities.
Sat 5 June to Sun 5 September 2021, Eye Filmmuseum, more info at eyefilm.nl
