Behind the Scenes: Dollywood & the Case of Nathalie

Programme

• Pre-film

  Life Is Nothing Without Philips (Henk Kabos, NL 1960, 8')

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  The dolls of Dollywood (25')

  In 2022, Eye purchased a collection of some 700 dolls that were used for the films of Joop Geesink’s Dollywood film studio between 1942 - 1972. Occasioned by this acquisition, Eye’s archivist, Piet Dirkx, shot a film about the way the dolls and the films they starred in were made. To this end, he interviewed Geesink expert Arie den Draak and former employee of Geesink’s studio Paul Veltman. Introduced by Soeluh van den Berg (Film-Related Collections Eye).

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  The case of Nathalie

  The screening of the film Nathalie (Anne Dastrée, FR 1966, 30') about a day in the life of a 14-year-old girl becoming conscious of her sexuality. She is invited to a school party, but her parents forbid her from going. She goes anyway, returning somewhat confused.
  
  Nathalie was released in the Netherlands by Centra Film and is an example of appropriation by the film’s distributor. Two scenes were cut before the film was even screened and ultimately there were two different versions of the film in circulation. One for TV, where it was screened as part of a programme for parents and children (‘Healthy Family’) and one for cinemas. The TV leans into the parents’ responsibility for their child, virtually nothing remains of her discovering her sexuality whereas the cinema version emphasises this at the expense of the parents’ virtual exclusion from the narrative.
  
  Rommy Albers (curator Eye) will provide a brief introduction after which a reconstruction of the original film will be screened with on-screen annotations indicating where scenes were edited and cut.