In all jury reports for the winning films, IDFA mentioned the importance of film and image archives for documentary makers. Without the continuous attention and efforts of film museums to preserve historical (and recent) footage and make it available via digital channels, the documentary genre would become impoverished quickly.
Archive footage from the Eye collection featured in award-winning IDFA films
No fewer than four documentaries that were screened at IDFA contain archive footage from the film museum's collection. For contemporary makers, the Eye collections are a true treasure trove: you will find historical newsreels, old commercials and special corporate and animation films alongside scientific films and amateur recordings from the early twentieth century.
By Eye Editors26 November 2024
still Bestiaries, Herbaria, Lapidaries (Massimo D'Anolfi, Martina Parenti, IT CH 2024)
Perspective
The IDFA juries also emphasized the vital role that archives play in our historical awareness. Without the preserved images, our knowledge of the past fades; without the archives and the researchers who draw on them, our view of the present also becomes blurred. After all, it is the images from the past – and the way they were used at the time – that clarify and put into perspective many contemporary social developments.
Eye Filmmuseum is one of the archival institutions that collaborates with documentary makers, sometimes acts as a co-producer and makes every effort to retrieve unknown material.
This year, four films for which Eye provided footage were awarded prizes:
still Trains (Maciej J. Drygas, PL 2024)
Trains
Trains (Maciej J. Drygas) won the prizes for Best Film and Best Editing in the International Competition. Maciej Drygas worked on this ambitious project for many years, in which he tells the modern history of Europe using 'train-related' found-footage images. From the Eye collection he selected footage from Aankomst Circus Carré (1904, newsreel), Maidenhead Junction (1898, one-minute film with footage of trains and trams, Mutoscope & Biograph Company) and Het bezoek van Eisenstein aan Holland (1931, footage by the famous director of Battleship Potemkin during a train journey through the Netherlands). The film is a co-production with Eye.
still Bestiaries, Herbaria, Lapidaries (Massimo D'Anolfi, Martina Parenti, IT CH 2024)
Bestiaries, Herbaria, Lapidaries
Bestiaries, Herbaria, Lapidaries (Massimo D'Anolfi en Martina Parenti) received the prize for Best Directing (Envision Competition). The makers chose fragments from short biological and physical films such as Bloeiende bloemen en plantenbewegingen, Uit het rijk der kristallen (J.C.Moll, 1927), De Rijks Veeartsenijkundige Hoogeschool, Dierenleven en Het wonder der X-stralen (ca.1924). The film is a co-production with Eye.
still The Propagandist (De propagandist, Luuk Bouwman, NL 2024)
The Propagandist
The Propagandist (De propagandist, Luuk Bouwman) won the award for Best Dutch Film. It is a sensational documentary about the almost forgotten Dutch filmmaker Jan Teunissen, of whom Eye has several films in its collection. Teunissen (1898-1975) was the most powerful man in the Dutch film industry as head of the Film department of the NSB and SS during the occupation. The film is about the ideology of a propagandist-collaborator and the manipulative power of film. Eye provided fragments from the notorious anti-Semitic films De eeuwige Jood (1941) and Van den vos Reynaerde (1943) and from Teunissen’s films Vrijdagavond (1932) and Willem van Oranje (1934).
still The Invisible Ones (De onzichtbaren, Martijn Blekendaal, NL BE 2024)
The Invisible Ones
The Invisible Ones (De onzichtbaren, Martijn Blekendaal), about children who had to make themselves invisible to survive, received a special mention in the category Youth Documentary (9-12 years). From the Eye collection, Blekendaal selected a short fragment from a Batavus commercial. Eye also assisted the maker with substantive and legal advice.