#6: Dutch Film in the 70s and 80s

Lecture

A large part of Eye’s collection are films that were produced in the Netherlands in the 1970s and 1980s. Eye has initiated a project in recent years to focus on the research and restoration of these films. One of such films is the documentary Waar de ratten koning zijn (1985, Barbara den Uyl) which was restored in 2022 at Eye.

For this session, we invite Eye’s former trainees Carolina Battaglini (Film Restoration) and Martine Bouw (Film Collection), and curator Rommy Albers to discuss this restoration and Eye’s collection of Dutch films from the 70s and 80s. Introduction by Giovanna Fossati (Chief Curator at Eye and Professor of Film Heritage at the University of Amsterdam). Q&A in collaboration with the Master students of the This is Film! class at the University of Amsterdam.

Screening

Waar de Ratten Koning Zijn (Barbara den Uyl, NL 1985)

In the Staatsliedenbuurt, Amsterdam in the 1980s, squatters, punks, and the neighbourhood's original residents, come together to form the "Woongroep Staatsliedenbuurt''. After years of ineffective housing policy, the municipal council's power had almost completely vanished. At the end of 1984, the neighbourhood took issues into its own hands, as was painfully evident when Amsterdam's mayor Van Thijn was forcibly ejected from the neighbourhood.

Barbara den Uyl, a filmmaker and neighbour, documented how the locals fought the system for more than a year. The film's major actors share their personal reflections on the terrible death of Hans Kok in an Amsterdam police cell in an epilogue. The film was restored at Eye in 2022 within the framework of the Eye Traineeship Program.

Guests

Martine Bouw is an access employee at Cinémathèque royale de Belgique - CINEMATEK, Brussels. She is also a programmer and researcher at the Nederlands Silent Film Festival (NSFF), Eindhoven. Previously, she worked at Eye Filmmuseum, Amsterdam, digital film registrar, booker, documentalist and digital ingest specialist. In 2021, Martine was the Film Collection Trainee at Eye Filmmuseum.

Carolina Battaglini studied Cinematography at the ENERC Film Academy (Buenos Aires)and Film Preservation at EQZE (San Sebastián). In 2021, Carolina was the Film Restoration Trainee at Eye Filmmuseum. Rommy Albers is curator of Dutch film and cinema culture at Eye Filmmuseum.