De Beeldenstorm

In 1970, a former milk bottling plant on the Lijnbaansgracht in Amsterdam was turned into a temporary music, theatre and film centre with a tea house and restaurant. Ten years later, Johan van der Keuken was asked to shoot a documentary about what had since become known as the Melkweg pop and cultural centre.

Van der Keuken created a poetic edit of images and sound in which static and dynamic impressions tumble around, roll away only to return. Van der Keuken and editor Jan Dop alternate urban footage and interior detail with gig excerpts and people in Melkweg’s entourage: a migrant labourer from England, a German hippy, a musician of Surinamese origin and a Dutch female runaway who has found community in the capital’s punk scene. Filmed in their personal environments, they talk about their lives in the city and how they view the world.

Alongside De Beeldenstorm, Eye has also restored a documentary on the precursor to Paradiso: George Sluizer’s Omtrent Fantasio – De Kosmos. Both can be watched on the Eye Film Player from December 24 on.

With on December 23 an introduction by film maker / writer Nina de Vroome.

Nina de Vroome (1989) is a filmmaker and author. She studied film at KASK/School of Arts in Ghent and has since created visual art and documentaries, including 'Een idee van de zee' (2016), 'Het geluk van honden' (2018), and 'Globes' (2021). She is an editor of the film magazine Sabzian, which organized a complete retrospective of Johan van der Keuken's work at CINEMATEK in Brussels in 2024, along with the publication of a large selection of texts on the Sabzian website.