Amsterdam Weekly: Vol 4 Issue 04, 25-31 January 2007

Volume 4, Issue 4

FREE EVERY WEDNESDAY

WEEKOF 25 JANUARY TO 31JANUARY 2007 Inside: Music, Film, Art and Events

SINKING YOUR TEETH INTO THE FRESHEST OF FILM

IFFR 2007

PAGES 6-10

CRITICS’PICKS / A HARD AND ANIMATED LOOK AT PORN ABORIGINAL SWAMP HUMOUR / ÅSDAM IN FOCUS / SMART AT CINEMART

PLUS: SADDAM,MOVIE STAR PAGE 4

/ IMPROV AS BLOOD SPORT PAGE 4 / MIGRANT SET PIECES PAGE 5

25-31 January 2007

Amsterdam Weekly

ATTACHMENTS Contents: On the cover Rrrr and Prrr at IFFR 2007.

Features Mobile movies. . . . . . . . . . . 4 Theatresport . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Living rooms . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 IFFR special . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Anders Morgenthaler. . . . . 6 10 Canoes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Knut Åsdam. . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 CineMart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Going out Short List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Music . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Clubs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Gay & Lesbian . . . . . . . . . . 15 Stage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Events. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Film. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Film Times. . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Plus The Glutton . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Classifieds . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Eefje Wentelteefje . . . . . . 23

Amsterdam Weekly is a free cultural paper distributed every Wednesday in Amsterdam. Paid subscriptions are available on request. For details, write to info@amsterdamweekly.nl. Contents of Amsterdam Weekly are copyright 2007 Amsterdam Weekly BV. All rights reserved.

Winner of 3 European Newspaper Awards Amsterdam Weekly BV De Ruyterkade 106, 1011 AB Amsterdam Tel: 020 522 5200 Fax: 020 620 1666 www.amsterdamweekly.nl General info: info@amsterdamweekly.nl Agenda listings: agenda@amsterdamweekly.nl Advertising: sales@amsterdamweekly.nl PUBLISHER Todd Savage EDITOR Steve Korver ASSISTANT EDITOR Kim Renfrew AGENDA EDITOR Steven McCarron FILM EDITOR Julie Phillips PROOFREADER Karina Hof EDITORIAL ASSISTANT Sarah Gehrke ART DIRECTOR Bas Morsch PRODUCTION MANAGER Vela Arbutina PRODUCTION DESIGNERS Mattijs Arts, Rogier Charles SALES ASSOCIATES Haitske van Asten, Alexander Gan, Simone Klomp, Simon Poole, Carolina Salazar OPERATIONS MANAGER Monique Gruter OPERATIONS ASSISTANT Desislava Pentcheva DISTRIBUTION COORDINATOR Patrick van der Klugt FINANCIAL ADVISER Kurt Schmidt, Veresis Consulting PRINTER Het Volk Printing ISSN 1872-3268 THIS WEEK’S CONTRIBUTORS Peter Bartlema, Anuschka Blommers, Dara Colwell, Matthew Curlewis, Floris Dogterom, Matt Groening, Luuk van Huët, Arnoud Holleman, Celia Layton, Jeroen de Leijer, Nick Leslie, Steven McCarron, Vincent Moritz, Kim Renfrew, Jaro Renout, Marinus de Ruiter, Sanstitre, Nina Schein, Bregtje Schudel, Niels Schumm, Shain Shapiro and Simon Wald-Lasowski.

10 BLOWN-AWAY TREES by Arnoud Holleman

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AROUND TOWN

SIMON WALD-LASOWSKI

From cell to cell to cell...

YouTube news New technology is making us unruly quantities.

By Floris Dogterom Of all recently released motion pictures, the one showing the gruesome death of Saddam Hussein has been the most influential. The chaotic hanging of the self-proclaimed Great Survivor was filmed with a cell phone; tens of millions of people have watched the footage on websites like Google Video and YouTube.

The fact that the images weren’t made by a professional film crew seems to fit in perfectly with the recent trend of socalled ‘consumer journalism’, in which civilians play the role of news providers.

Another manifestation of consumer journalism is the explosive increase of blogs, places where the Saddam footage is much discussed. How could it be, many of them ask, that no one stopped the cell phone film-maker from recording the footage?

The way human behaviour is being registered and controlled is a subject of scientific research, the results of which are known as ‘surveillance theory’. One of the research bodies dealing with this theory is the Institute of Network Cultures, a joint venture of the Hogeschool van Amsterdam and the UvA. Managing director Sabine Niederer explains how, on the one hand, civilians are losing their privacy, while on the other, they are taking control. ‘People are increasingly giving up their privacy on a voluntary basis, in order to gain by it. That’s called “participatory surveillance”. Think of registering your contact details when you are shopping on Amazon, so next time you want to buy something you only have to press one button. The question is: where does it

stop? How much information are you willing to provide? Is the US allowed to know which flight you have boarded? You can’t be anonymous anymore, which has been described as “the disappearance of disappearance”. And another thing is: the information will be stored and will never be forgotten. That also goes for the footage of Saddam Hussein’s execution.’

Niederer touches on another aspect of surveillance theory: ‘The French philosopher Michel Foucault wrote about how facilities and infrastructure suppress unwanted behaviour. For instance, the architecture of hospitals, industrial plants and prisons stimulate predictable behaviour. But what if the inmates all had cell phones through which they were in touch with the outside world? They would become unruly.

‘This is exactly what happened at the Saddam hanging. It should have been a hermetically sealed room. Maybe the persons present were asked to switch off their cell phones, and maybe that request triggered someone to do exactly the opposite. It was consumer technology that enabled the film-maker to do what he did. He had become unruly. I guess the [moral] of this incident is that there are an ever-increasing number of means to control human behaviour, yet when it comes to the crunch they don’t work.’

Twan Eikelenboom runs a blog (http://newmw.wordpress.com). He has a journalism background and is currently doing a Masters degree in new media at the UvA. According to Eikelenboom: ‘The influence of mobile phones with camera function is undeniably very high. On my blogs, I am more text-orientated, though.

I am looking for news myself and try to generate original content from it. I call it “grass-roots journalism”. Issues that have been brought to the fore on blogs are often picked up by the established media.’ Eikelenboom states that the footage of Hussein’s execution wasn’t embedded in a journalistic context. ‘The hanging itself was the news. The movie became news because people got a kick out of watching it. You and me are discussing the YouTube spectacle, not Saddam’s death. How could it happen— the circulation of the movie becoming a news item? You might ask whether it is an example of consumer journalism or plain voyeurism.’

Eikelenboom answers the question himself by saying that ‘there’s more to journalism than this. I don’t think that cell phone footage and blogs are a real threat to the traditional media, although they [the media] do respond to the development. De Volkskrant, for instance, runs blogs on the internet. They [the established media] realise that they need to change their attitude towards news. People increasingly turn to the internet for news; they value spectacular events. As a medium you have to make room for that.

The media-consumer relationship used to be top-down—the media determined what you’d read, see and hear. Those days are over.’

Lekker spontaan Making it up at the improv Olympics.

By Jaro Renout We know for a fact that the human ability to adapt spontaneously to ever-changing circumstances has led to some of our species’ most triumphant moments. But when we use that primary survival tool for fun instead of fact, we can get a good laugh out of it as well. At least we can if we’re involved in what can be described as the gladiatorial battle of comedians: theatresport.

Picture this: two teams of improvisational actors sweat it out in front of a jury and an unrestrained audience, throwing either roses to favoured contestants, or wet sponges at the jurors when verdicts are disagreed with. The public provides the inspirational cues; the actors improvise the scenes. Points from both jury and audience decide who the winner is.

Amsterdam will be this week’s arena for the 12th International Improvisation Theatre Festival. All performances will be in English, with competing teams from Belgium, Russia, Italy, the US and the Netherlands. Blood in, blood out.

But first David Dabekaussen, one of the players for the Dutch team, provides some history: ‘Theatresport’s present form was developed in the 1970s by British acting teacher Keith Johnstone in the US, but its origins are in sixteenthcentury Europe, when bands of travelling comedians would provide the locals with improvised scenes around a scenario, influenced by current affairs. Like the rise and fall of contemporary Tom Cruises, that sort of thing. This format lasted some two hundred years, but then vanished.’

Until sometime in the 1930s, that is, when a recreational director named Viola Spolin began experimenting with its form in the slums of Chicago. She saw in improvisational games a means to get through to the kids. Her sons took it to the big stage and founded a theatre company called Compass. This would evolve in Chicago’s famous Second City, the mothership of improvisational comedy.

In Amsterdam, both the Johnstone and the Spolin lineages will be represented, respectively: Theatersportvereniging Amsterdam (TVA) and Boom Chicago.

Dabekaussen, who is also a member of The Fluffy Suicide Bunnies, explains the difference: ‘Theatresport is in fact a performance about a competition. The game element is used to give the whole thing more spunk. But, as you will see at the festival, sometimes a single lead from the audience will travel the length of a onehour story. The Second City variety is more aimed at delivering quick jokes at a fast pace. A bit like stand-up.’

But what kind of people have what it takes? According to Dabekaussen: ‘People who don’t take things for granted.

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25-31 January 2007

When you enter this discipline, you “unlearn” all culturally fixed reaction patterns.’

Meanwhile, in a gym last week, Boom Chicago veteran Rob AndristPlourde clarified the essence of improv to a beginners’ class. ‘Two words: “yes, and...”

Whenever you are confronted with new input from the other players, you can create a scene, building on the information.

Saying “yes” is essential to keep the flow going; the “and” part enables you to add your own ideas.’

Pretty soon, the class is entangled in all sorts of weird and wonderful projects, ranging from furiously trying to resemble a ceiling fan to the arrival of two tapdancing Siberian tigers. Try to Google that one...

‘It’s about the freedom to think.

React,’ says AndristPlourde. ‘Improv acting requires you to interact with each other, but you can’t dominate the path you’re taking. Your brilliant plot will be swept away by your partner’s input. You’ll have to do it together, and back each other up.’

Wacky? Perhaps, but at least this class seems to have a firm grip on the unreal. Since management training courses have a tendency to enlist their recruits in ‘expression’ programmes such as these, one can’t help but wonder: can these newly found skills be used in the real world? Is it perhaps not unlike judo?

Dabekaussen answers: ‘I’ve been doing this for six years now, and I’ve learned to be open for suggestions. Your fear for the unknown becomes insignificant; I actually look it up now. It helps me in business.

It’s a way of thinking, and I often notice that I’m using these skills.’

In the gym, the class continue to crawl, fall and learn while staying devot-

ed to the positive art of saying ‘yes, and...’

The students rapidly supersede their own initial expectations. Some even start to be funny. This shit can get addictive.

Of course, the class realise that they are still mumbling virgins on the slippery trails of ‘yes, and-ing’, something that will be made painfully clear at any time by the Boom Chicago crew, or this week on the Rozengracht when the real deal comes to town.

The 12th International Improvisation Theatre Festival, until 27 January, Rozentheater, Rosengracht 117, 620 7953, €12,50/€60 passepartout, http://festival.theatersport.nl

design choices made.

Judging from the queues at IKEA on weekends, the younger generation has wholeheartedly bought into flat-packing and white wood. But what is important for second-generation migrants? ‘The challenge in the curatorial design of the installation and exhibition was to unpack the details and social-cultural values associated with various iconic objects that different migrant communities would have or desire to have in their living rooms,’ says McMillan.

Some of these iconic objects can clearly be seen in Chan’s photographs. In the case of 60-year-old Frieda VeldhuizenHes, the rattan furniture that stood on her grandparents’ porch in Indonesia takes pride of place. For 39-year-old Ugur Pekdemir, his kilim, or Turkish carpet, which symbolises warmth and beauty, hints at his heritage; while the Carco shell and aloe plant in 43-year-old Delilah Eugenio’s living room remind her of her old house on Curaçao. While the objects in the photographs might differ, as do their material and sentimental values, there is the common feeling that a living room is part of the house reserved for entertaining, a part the ‘outside’ world sees, and as such, should reflect the culture and origin of the inhabitant.

‘I am not attempting to be definitive [in this exhibition],’ says McMillan, ‘but rather, create archetypes that will by recognised by visitors and therefore communicate how we are the same but different. Ultimately, it is about sharing the experience of the human condition through zooming in on specific cultural expressions.’

Van Huis Uit, 27 January - 5 May, Imagine IC (Tues-Sat 11.00-17.00, Thur 11.00-21.00), Bijlmerplein 1006-1008, 489 4866, www.imagineic.nl

Where does this family come from?

Armchair politics What your living room says about you.

By Celia Layton A living room, also known as a ‘sitting room’, ‘parlour’ or ‘lounge’, has as many uses as it has names. It is a place for reading, watching television or entertaining guests. In short, it’s a place for living when you are not either eating or sleeping. But this domestic space, just like the nuclear family that once occupied it, is dying out. A study carried out by the American National Association of Home Builders in 2001 showed that nearly half the people surveyed would happily sacrifice a living room in order to gain more space elsewhere.

That said, most homes are still built with a living room and much thought goes into furnishing it. But what effect does cul-

TING CHAN

Whose line is it anyway?

ture have on how it is furnished? This is the question explored by artist and guest curator Michael McMillan in the exhibition Van Huis Uit, which opens on Saturday. Located in Imagine IC, the gallery in Zuidoost that focuses on the visualisation of the identity and culture of migrants, the exhibition looks at the contemporary living rooms of Moroccans, Surinamese, Antillean and Indo-Europeans in the Netherlands.

Born in the UK to parents from St Vincent in the Caribbean, McMillan was last year commissioned by the Geffrye Museum in London to create an installation entitled The West Indian Front Room, inspired by the living rooms of his parents’ generation.

‘I used the design of The West Indian Front Room as the basis for Van Huis Uit, as it was successful in enabling visitors to experience the front room as an installation,’ says McMillan.

‘But whether British or Dutch, the migrant experience resonates for me, because the narrative of arriving in a country with nothing but dignity, respectability, deferred dreams, aspirations for the future and the struggle for social mobility in a society that demonises you as the “other” is all too familiar.’

To accompany the installation, McMillan commissioned photographer Ting Chan to make life-size portraits of migrant families in their own living rooms. ‘The focus of the exhibition is primarily on the second generation, those who came to the Netherlands young or were born here, but essentially grew up in the era of the civil rights movement, Black Power and feminism, and remember disco from the 1970s,’ says McMillan.

Imagine IC also asked Masters students from the Hogeschool voor de Kunsten in Utrecht to develop a computer game. The game allows players to compete with other visitors, while at the same time designing their ideal living room. It will be interesting to see what impact additional differences, such as social and generational, have on the

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IFFR SPECIAL

OUR IFFR CRITICAL PICKS The 36th International Film Festival Rotterdam opened on 24 January. On show until 4 February are 97 feature-length films, including 30 European premieres, which highlight the work of original, independent film-making from all over the world. For the complete movie listing and programme details, consult the official De Volkskrant IFFR supplement and www.iffr.nl.

Tickets are €8 (or €5 with the €20 Tijgerpas discount card), available at the festival box office located at the Willem Burgerzaal entrance of De Doelen, Kruisstraat 2, Rotterdam, from 09.00-23.00.

Films reviewed by John Hartnett (JH), Luuk van Huët (LvH), Kim Renfrew (KR), Marinus de Ruiter (MdR) and Bregtje Schudel (BS).

DOES IT HURT?—THE FIRST BALKAN DOGMA (ANETA LESNIKOVA, MACEDONIA)

Long-time Amsterdam resident and film-maker Aneta Lesnikova presents her Tiger-nominated film following rules laid down by Lars von Trier in his Dogme95 manifesto. It’s about the director’s (fictional) journey to Macedonia, where producers are waiting to fund the film, and it experiments with manipulating people and situations. So, why make a Dogme movie now? ‘It was completely Dogme, simply because we had no money,’ says Lesnikova. ‘If you follow the rules, you become aware of a certain roughness that is part of the film itself, but is usually edited out. In our film, you become aware of the manipulation inherent in film.’ (LvH)

EX DRUMMER (KOEN MORTIER, BELGIUM)

HITTING THE FUNNY BONE—OR NOT Is Danish animation director Anders Morgenthaler immoral, a moralist or just a porn anthropologist?

By Marinus de Ruiter

Novelist Herman Brusselmans has been known to insult a fellow Flemish person or two in his cynical, quasiautobiographical tragicomedies.

Although he still has his old shock of Michael Boltonesque hair, he’s settled down in recent years, giving up the drinking and toning down the womanising—so it’s time for the film industry to jump on one of his earlier, sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll-packed stories, Ex Drummer, from 1994. Convinced by

The Danish animated feature Princess is a full-frontal attack on the porn industry.

Some viewers were shocked by its graphic violence, while others accused director Anders Morgenthaler of neo-Puritanism.

Even more were impressed by the film’s clever mixture of styles. ‘I intended to make an American story with my European temperament, using the animation techniques of Japan,’ says Morgenthaler on the phone from Copenhagen.

Princess is a classic tale of retribution, resembling stories like Taxi Driver and Death Wish. Missionary priest August returns home to pick up Mia, the five-year-old daughter of his sister

Christina, a porn star who died of a drug overdose. When August finds out the child was abused by the people around Princess, as his sister was known, he goes on a bloody rampage through the porn world to avenge his sister and niece.

Morgenthaler deliberately made his first feature-length film for an audience already attracted to sex and violence.

‘Teenage boys, who are among the biggest group of porn consumers, are telling me that they learned something from the movie and that they started thinking about why people are in the porn business,’ he says. ‘If I taught a hundred boys about this, then a hundred boys are smarter from now on.’

Danish film critics called Morgenthaler

an übermoralist because of this attitude. ‘I think it’s bizarre, because they know my other work, which is totally boundless.’ As part of the famous duo Wulff-Morgenthaler, the director publishes daily cartoons in Danish newspapers, which are known for their sardonic, hilarious and often sexually explicit views on humanity.

‘The thing I reacted to is that in Denmark and other Scandinavian countries we’re very keen on talking, but we don’t do anything because we want to be as liberal as possible,’ says Morgenthaler. ‘I really believe in a high level of freedom, but I wanted to look at it from the outside. I hate the fact that we have a huge porn-consuming audience in Scandinavia, and that we’re teaching our children it’s OK to have a group of people at the bottom of society doing porn, because supposedly we all know what real love and sex is. I think the empathy towards other people is lost in that discussion.’

‘I made a personal story, a story about what you would do if you had a relative or friend who went into this,’ says the director. ‘August can’t handle the fact that he isn’t able to save his sister, which is a typical problem for all of us. If we have a friend or family member who does stupid things and we want to help them, they

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IFFR SPECIAL

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three physically challenged freaks, the protagonist joins their disabled rock band—his own handicap being an inability to play drums. Simultaneously ugly, violent and hilarious, this film looks like one big ‘fuck you’ dedicated to everyone who hates it. (MdR)

EXPLODING CINEMA Even if you dislike being stuck in a dark, cavernous theatre with a collection of mouth-breathing troglodytes who have been marinating in their bodily fluids for a couple of days, there are still plenty of good reasons to visit the IFFR. Exploding Cinema washes the most august of Rotterdam’s art institutes in blinding light, which is also this year’s theme. At V2_, the institute for unstable media, you’ll find the Camera Lucida installation. In a transparent, sealed chamber filled with gas, sound waves are transmitted and translated into light waves, making use of the phenomenon called ‘sonoluminescence’.

At the Witte de With TENT, meanwhile, Thorbjörn Lausten has made an installation that recreates the Northern Lights, which occur when electrons come into contact with the magnetic field of our planet. And at NAi, the ‘Luminaries’ lectures will discuss the Architecture of the Night: Luminous Buildings exhibition. Whatever you do, go towards the light! (LvH)

THE HOST (BONG JOON-HO, SOUTH KOREA)

tend to push us away.

‘That doesn’t mean August is doing the right thing,’ Morgenthaler continues.

‘I think only people who have strict rules to live by, as in religion, [resort to violence] like he does.’

For his investigation into the backgrounds of porn world, Morgenthaler had difficulty contacting experienced people from the industry.

‘I tried to interview people who made porn in the US, but it’s so hard. The ones you can find are so much in denial of what they’re doing and the ones who have given up the industry are impossible to find. They have changed their name or moved to another country, whatever they can do to get away from the whole thing.’

Morgenthaler didn’t expect any reactions towards his film from the porn industry, but after Princess was released he did receive a message.

‘One amateur porn-maker emailed me, saying I was totally wrong. I invited him to have a discussion for a TV session,’ says Morgenthaler. ‘He agreed and we made a production for the Danish DVD where I talk with Mr Martini, Danish porn star,’ he laughs.

Although his discussion partner was convinced that he could turn the whole

sex industry into a healthy business, Morgenthaler quickly recognised that he was dealing with a classic case, not unlike Charlie, the porn boss character in Princess. ‘You can see that in nearly every documentary on porn—it starts with a guy who has a girlfriend and he persuades her into it. Once you investigate, you find horrible stories all the time.

Most people are in it for money or drugs or they have been sexually molested their whole life. Low self-esteem is the main problem in the porn world.’

Princess contains a fair amount of live action footage in amateur video style, portraying the gradual demise of Christina into porn and drugs. Actual sex and violence is only suggested in these scenes—shocking images are all integrated into the animation, which is unique in its mixture of European-style and Japanese anime techniques.

‘What I love about the Japanese is that they only animate what is necessary,’ says the director. ‘I needed that precision for my movie to stay within the budget.

But also, in Japan, you can see intelligent people with a lot of cinematic skills making animation. Compared to them, Europeans and Americans are doing pretty ordinary stuff. They keep making

The calm before the porn storm.

things that people want and that financers agree on, but I don’t buy into the “it’s only for kids” argument. They should lower their price and make a product that tells something personal.’

Morgenthaler deliberately diverged from his own style of drawing. ‘Because my cartoons are so well known in Denmark, I chose to work with another artist, the graphic designer Rune Fisker,’ he says. ‘I didn’t want a typical funny bone thing. I wanted a more fragile and grownup look which I felt I couldn’t deliver, so I made a rule for myself not to make a single drawing, except for a few composition notes and storyboard details.’

With the fresh talent in their crew, Morgenthaler and his two animation directors managed to create a unique look. ‘We only chose people who were not too cemented into the Disney style.

We learned the whole thing together; that was a very good experience.’

Princess opens Thursday at 22.00, Rotterdamse Schouwburg, Schouwburgplein 25, Rotterdam, 010 411 8110, €5, www.iffr.nl.

The vibrant Korean film scene has produced a horror movie with the scariest monster and the most sympathetic, non-cardboard characters, set in an environment that looks so real and lively it degrades most contemporary Hollywood gore flicks to the level of children’s movies. The plot is simple— an unsuspecting crowd near Seoul’s Han River is attacked by a giant, lightning-fast mutant. Among the digested remains of its previous victims, a little girl is kept alive and she calls her relatives for help. The family’s quest for the child is obstructed by the evil American army, which also happened to have caused the problem by dumping chemicals in the river. Nasty, but irresistible. (MdR)

HAPPY ENDINGS Not to be confused with the Don Roos film from two years back—too bad, or there’d be soothing massages to be had—this themed programme is actually about the myriad of different ways we have discovered for watching films.

No longer confined to the sprawling multiplex, the intimacy of the art house or the privacy of your own home, movies are now watched on iPods, phones and game pads, and most titles

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IFFR SPECIAL

leak to the net before their world premiere has even happened. This incomprehensible and diffuse development requires equally obfuscatory measures, which is why the programme encompasses a digital video lounge with a selection of festival films, a DVD shop from which film-makers peddle their wares and even an indoor soccer tournament for film-makers on 30 January. And if you have a revolutionary screenplay, you’re more than welcome to proclaim its illustriousness with a recital on the script stage, you budding Branagh you! (LvH)

HOT SPOTS BUCHAREST The aim of IFFR’s Hot Spots programme is to screen films that really capture the cultural climate of a place.

And what a climate Romania has: 19 years ago, Nicolae Ceaucescu and his Lady Macbeth, Elena, still clung to power; after the death of the dictator there were many fallow years of corruption, but now the country is a member of the EU. From a completely closed society to an artistically free one, films like The Paper Will Be Blue—Radu Muntean’s realist drama about the chaos that took place in the hours after the fall of Ceaucescu— reveal that this is a place still coming to terms with old wounds. And it’s funny, too. The programme is bolstered by shorts and a great swathe of Romanian musicians and visual artists. The other Hot Spot this year is an equally troubled town: Teheran. (KR)

IMAGES FROM THE REGION

Forbidden love is no laughing matter. Mostly.

ABORIGINAL HUMOUR IN AUSTRALIAN SWAMP Dutch-Australian director Rolf de Heer helps the Yolngu enact an ancient myth—with a few rude noises thrown in.

By Vincent Moritz

Israel remains an enigma. It’s not the first country that comes to mind when you talk about tolerating people whose opinions differ from one’s own. And yet the Israeli government allows films— especially documentaries—total freedom of speech. No matter how antiIsraeli the subject matter. The documentaries in the programme Images from the Region show us a far more diverse and balanced perspective on living in Israel than we have come to expect from all the news coverage. In Bil’in My Love, an Israeli film-maker joins forces with the inhabitants of Bil’in, a Palestinian village split in two by the Israeli fence. Dear Father, Quiet, We’re Shooting... shows Israeli soldiers who became conscientious objectors.

Closing Your Eyes, meanwhile, wanders through ghost towns that once were bustling Palestinian cities. The most disturbing documentary, however, is HotHouse, shot in an Israeli prison filled with Palestinians. It shows us not only the conviction of the prisoners, but also the ways in which imprisonment turns each convict into a politician.

Australia, a thousand years ago. Ten stern-looking Aboriginal men make their way through a swampy forest. Suddenly, the last one in line loudly protests about his place in the rear. After an awkward silence the man voices his grievance: ‘Someone is farting in front of me.’ The swamp echoes with laughter. The man moves up a few places and the band moves on merrily.

Films about indigenous people tend to meet with a solemn approach, but director Rolf de Heer (born in Holland in 1951, raised in Australia), has found a place for cheeky humour in his critically acclaimed eleventh production. Ten Canoes is an indigenous morality drama, set in Australia long before the continent was visited by outsiders.

Renowned actor David Gulpilil, who starred in De Heer’s The Tracker (2002), narrates the story in English. Where The Tracker was a period drama about murser and justice in the Outback, Ten Canoes has a mythic character. It is a tale about a young man (a debut performance by Gulpilil’s son Jamie) who has taken a fancy to the youngest wife of his older brother. To teach the youngster how to live the proper way and not break the sacred tribal laws, the older brother tells his sibling an ancestral story that directly relates to the delicate issue at hand. The story deals with forbidden love, kidnap-

ping, sorcery and revenge gone wrong.

‘From the time that I worked with David Gulpilil on The Tracker, he had wanted me to make a film with his people,’ says De Heer on the phone from his Adelaide home. ‘A few years later, David arranged that we could shoot on his land. Then I thought we could do it in their language. So I rang him up and said, let’s do it.’

Between the language barrier and the harsh, remote location, the production ground to a halt several times, but De Heer felt determined to push on. ‘The whole society runs on obligation,’ De Heer explains. ‘I felt I had an obligation to the people. They have been treated badly by white people so often. I was not going to be the one to do it again.’

The film was shot in and around the swamps of Arnhem Land on the northern tip of the Northern Territory. Part of the history of the people there, the Yolngu, is called ‘Thomson time’, referring to the mid-1930s, when anthropologist Donald Thomson lived with them and took thousands of photos documenting their daily life. One of those photos depicts 10 men out on the swamp in bark canoes, hunting geese and their eggs. When De Heer started casting, the descendants of the men in the photo claimed the parts of their forefathers. ‘There is no concept of fiction in their community,’ De Heer explains. ‘They are not playing their ancestors, they are not even being their

ancestors, they are their ancestors. They are quite literal about it. It is a different cosmology.’

With the 10 canoeists in place, De Heer got together with the community and combined vivid myths and legends with current events and scenes depicted on the Thomson photos to construct the story. De Heer recalls: ‘It was my job to put it all into shape. I didn’t write dialogue because none of them had ever acted before. I figured that if they understood the scene they would do it their own way. In that sense the actors wrote their own dialogue, in their native language. I made sure that their humour was part of it. That’s who they are. Even in difficult circumstances they always find the time to laugh. I wanted to represent that important part of their culture.’

Ten Canoes won the Special Jury Prize in Cannes as well as six Australian Film Institute awards, including Best Director and Best Film. The success of the film was a great boost of self-confidence for the Yolngu. The actors have a 50 per cent share in the film’s profits, but they consider monetary gain less important than the achievement itself. De Heer explains: ‘They never thought they could achieve this. In general, indigenous people in Australia have very low self-esteem. They get told all the time that their culture is no good, that they are going to die out, that they are useless.

Some of the actors accompanied me to the film festivals and witnessed the recognition, the applause. It told them that their culture has validity. It has changed the community from feeling it is not going anywhere to looking ahead.’

Ten Canoes opens 27 January at 17.00, Luxor, Posthumalaan 1, Rotterdam, 010 484 3333. It opens on 1 February at The Movies and Rialto in Amsterdam.

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Still, there’s room for lighter diversion, like in A Hebrew Lesson—easily the most entertaining documentary of the pack—where we follow the struggles of a group of immigrants (‘new ascenders’) and their teacher. And the makers of Eight Twenty Eight and Dear Edmond both reminisce about the past: the first about his time in a kibbutz, the latter about the city of Tel Aviv. (BS)

MOBILE PHONE MOVIES

Interacting with one’s environment.

WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE Knut Åsdam explains how we adapt to the whims of the city in his artificial recreation of an urban park.

By Marinus de Ruiter In the present-day metropolis, people are constantly adapting to new circumstances which are often beyond their control. The cinematically inspired work of Knut Åsdam, the artist in focus at this year’s IFFR, reflects the erratic and estranging effect that the city can have on the psyche, language and behaviour of its inhabitants.

Inside Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, the Norwegian-born artist has set up a sensational environment, combining architecture and video projection. His installation recreates a night-time city park. Within it is a square with benches where one of the artist’s films is screened.

‘It’s a place of fantasy,’ says Åsdam. ‘It plays on the conventions of what goes on in the city park at night—this could be cruising, drugs or just hanging out. By being so dark and physical, the exhibition environment alludes to the borders of the body and to a more psychological experience of the space.’

The city is a constant factor in Åsdam’s art. ‘It’s the framework that I’m used to and that I’m able to think in,’ he says. ‘The city is always an environment where little deviations and resistances are happening. Something is designed for one purpose, but then it’s used in other ways by people.’

The film being screened is last year’s Finally, which Åsdam shot on 35 mm.

The 18-minute short opens with a scene of three young people of different race and gender rolling on the ground. In following scenes, we see them talking about each other and about their environment.

Finally was shot in Salzburg, but has no recognisable reference points to that city, so it could have been made in Paris, Antwerp or any old European city showing signs of great wealth in earlier times.

According to Åsdam, this historic context implies violence and exploitation of other regions.

During the IFFR the film will also be shown in its original format in a theatre, along with Åsdam’s other 35 mm shorts Filter City (2003) and Blissed (2005).

Although the films were shot in different kinds of urban contexts, they include some of the same actors who perform in a similarly awkward, often detached style.

‘I’m interested in the psychology of language, in trying to find a way of speaking about things,’ says the artist.

In all three films, the main characters are struggling to make sense of their surroundings. Blissed, which was shot in Birmingham, focuses on teenagers trying to find their way in the highly commercialised city centre of a typically gentrified Western urban area. Filter City was made in New York and Istanbul, around the generic flats and housing estates found on the borders of every large city.

In the films, architecture plays a vital

role that is similar to that of the characters; it is not only a representation of the historic, economic and social background, but it also shows signs of being influenced and changed by them. Åsdam has described architecture as a metaphor for the definition of the body and the subject. Two of Åsdam’s video works focusing solely on architecture are exhibited at both Boijmans and NAi, the Netherlands Architechture Institute. In this context, the artist will also make graffiti work in exhibition space TENT. For the film programme, Åsdam has put together an additional selection of films by other directors. These films by Jean-Luc Godard, Eija-Liisa Ahtila and Amar Kanwar relate to Åsdam’s unconventional cinematic approach in obvious ways—for instance, the use of language in Godard’s films. ‘The language in my films is different from what you hear in Hollywood or television movies, but these typical, so-called ‘neutral forms’ are already totally remote from how people talk in everyday life,’ says Åsdam.

Up until now, Åsdam has found a useful vehicle for his ideas in short film.

Currently, however, he is working on his first feature-length presentation, which is scheduled to come out next winter. ‘It is seventy minutes long, so there will be a different emphasis on the narrative when compared to my other films,’ Åsdam says.

The Care of the Self Finally Edit shows at Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen (Tues - Sun 11.00-17.00), Museumpark 18-20, Rotterdam, 010 441 9400; Abyss and Smooth City, Smooth Space show at NAi (Tues - Sat 10.00-17.00, Sun 11.0017.00), Museumpark 25, Rotterdam. In addition to showing his own work, Knut Åsdam will screen some of his favourite films. See www.iffr.nl.

Testing the theory that mobile phone movies are all jerky, two-minutes long and clandestinely filmed, two homegrown directors are aiming at becoming the Truffauts of the telephone generation with the first features ever to be shot on phones. Cyrus Frisch made Waroom heeft niemand mij verteld dat het zo erg zou worden in Afghanistan?, a film seen from the perspective of a traumatised Afghan war vet back home in Amsterdam, on his Sharp 309. Aryan Kaganof—the artist formerly known as Ian Kerkhof—meanwhile, used a Sony Ericsson W900i to shoot SMS Sugar Man, an adventure in Johannesburg’s underworld of pimps, black rent boys and white trade. The grainy limitations imposed by the technology fit the subject matters of these disturbing movies perfectly, but only time or technological leaps forward will tell whether we’ll see an Oscar winner—or even a romcom— produced on a cell phone. (KR)

THE OLD WEIRD AMERICA (RANI SINGH, US)

In true music documentary style, talking heads and all—but without Bono—this is an investigative journey into a record that actually does matter, and that has changed popular music from the 1960s onwards. That record is The Anthology of American Folk Music, the compilation album of early 20th-century folk songs collected by anthropologist, artist and film-maker Harry Smith. Allen Ginsberg, Philip Glass and other Smith contemporaries get teary-eyed describing the impact of the simple, strange tunes on their lives.

In tribute performances, artists like Nick Cave, Elvis Costello, Beck and Sonic Youth prove that every reissue of Smith’s musical bible has converted new generations. Essential for those who care about music. (MdR)

THE PRESTIGE (CHRISTOPHER NOLAN, 2006)

Set in Victorian England, this tale of stage magicians Robert Angier (Hugh Jackman) and Alfred Borden (Christian Bale) is more upbeat and less subtle than The Illusionist, but equally watchable. The two performers’ youthful

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IFFR SPECIAL

rivalry escalates into battle when Borden is responsible for the death of Angier’s wife on stage in a Houdini-like water-tank trick. Borden also holds a secret that Angier desperately wants.

The trick, called ‘The Transported Man’, becomes an obsession until deep and dark deceptions rule their lives.

Michael Caine, as their manager, and David Bowie, as a fictional version of the real-life engineer/inventor Nikola Tesla, enhance proceedings. ‘The prestige’ is that part of a stage illusion ‘with twists and turns, where lives hang in the balance, and you see something shocking you’ve never seen before’.

Director Christopher Nolan (Memento, Insomnia) deals with ethics, class and morality, while transforming Christopher Priest’s acclaimed novel into a visual delight. (JH)

Shop talk and action.

R EJECT FILM FESTIVAL

JOHNNIE TO RETROSPECTIVE

SIMON WALD-LASOWSKI

This Salon des Refusés for film-makers rejected by IFFR programmers was begun by Eric den Hartigh in 2003, as a way of showing great movies that missed out, sometimes simply because they used unsuitable technology, like VHS. This year marks a departure, however, since it will be the first year that the IFFR rejects do not automatically qualify for screening.

‘We didn’t really pay attention to the selecting the first couple of years, but now we try to focus on quality and renewal and have put up stricter criteria,’ says Hartigh. ‘We do hope this’ll cause a R Eject R Eject festival.’ The opening party on 25 January at Roodkapje kicks off with an underground movie and a performance by The Heels. See www.myspace.com/rejectfilmfestival. (LvH)

CINEMART: MOVIES MEET MATCHMAKER Academy Award-winning Cédomir Kolar leads us through five days, 48 presentations and 8,000 meetings.

By Matthew Curlewis

If you didn’t know any better, you’d think the IFFR had sold out by selecting a prolific Hong Kong genre director for a retrospective instead of some obscure, Azerbaijani film-maker from the 1950s. But even though Johnnie To’s recent forays into crime films have reached the festival circuit and shelves of your neighbourhood rental shacks, his repertoire is much more varied and intriguing than his cops-vs-robbers and yakuza films. To has made romantic comedies, heroic bloodshed and glorified Cantopop music videos, switching genres and moods as easily as one changes underwear. Breaking News and PTU may be titles that sound familiar, but his Shaw Brothers homage The Barefooted Kid is one of his first little gems while The Odd One Dies owes a debt to the French nouvelle vague. To has worked with the biggest Hong Kong stars, but as a director, defies categorisation. Hopefully, until now. (LvH)

At this time of year when flash bulbs are popping at the Golden Globes and Academy Awards, it is possible to fall under the illusion that the movie world is all about red carpets, beaded gowns and blindingwhite smiles. And for some very tenacious, talented characters, occasionally that is their world—but ask one how they got there and the answer will be the same: years and years of hard work. In our own backyard, at the IFFR’s CineMart co-production market, some of that hard work is about to begin again, for the 24th consecutive year.

Over five pressure-cooker days, CineMart’s organisers will play matchmaker, introducing directors, producers and writers to potential partners on the money side, in the guise of co-producers, sales agents, television buyers, distributors and financiers. For many of these key players in the world of international independent cinema, CineMart has become an indis-

pensable platform supporting the realisation of new projects, and heralding the start of each new film year.

Even with increasing digitisation and viewing possibilities, film festivals are burgeoning around the world. While many of them are chiefly concerned with screening films, spiced up with occasional talks or guest appearances by directors and actors, others include some kind of annexed business market. Most of these markets, however, are concerned with securing the sales and distribution of complete or in-production films; it was Rotterdam that perceived the need for a market for films at much earlier stages in their development. It has grown steadily, and this year will present 48 film projects to potential partners over the course of a staggering 8,000 meetings.

Producer Cédomir Kolar knows very well the hard-work side to the film business, but he’s also had a few strolls up the red carpet, most notably when his 2001 Bosnian film No Man’s Land won a Best

Foreign Language Film Academy Award.

A staunch champion of independents, Kolar is also passionate about CineMart’s role on the international scale. ‘CineMart became the mother of all co-production markets, and the formula for many others that came after. The reason is simple: there is no other place in the world where quality meets efficiency, where you sit and have friendly chats about very important matters. At the other markets it is about fights: the word “aggressive” has become a compliment.’

At CineMart, and then in the months that follow, work gets done—meaning films get made. Over the years, more than 315 films pitched there have been completed and launched; each year, around 20 CineMart titles premiere at major festivals including Cannes, Berlin and, of course, Rotterdam.

For Kolar, the intentionally informal networking possibilities of CineMart have been integral to bringing his projects to life. ‘I discovered it about six years ago. I had a film in the festival and followed CineMart. Next time, I submitted a project. It all worked so well. It’s simple: if you are not at CineMart you might doubt if you are really an independent producer.

It’s a kind of benchmark, a password.’

This year, the projects come from countries as far apart as Sweden, Indonesia, Chile and Afghanistan, and from first-timers as well as seasoned directors.

Australia’s Stephan Elliott, who directed The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert will be presenting a camp, tragic ‘tale of paranoia, rivalry and passion’ called Black Oasis, based on the life and death of American B-movie actress Susan Cabot. At another table, multi-award-winning Korean shorts director Kim Jong-Kwan will be discussing his first feature, Sonyun, about a boy who commits murder, then finds first love.

CineMart coordinator Marit van den Elshout comments on this range of diversity: ‘There are many criteria that projects must meet—some of them technical, like budget amount and whether a producer is attached or not, and then others creative.

Is it a compelling story told in a non-conventional way, and does the director’s vision support this? We also try to have projects from all over the world, and try to strike a balance between well-known film-makers and newer talents. When there are more acclaimed directors present, more industry figures tend to attend, and then the newcomers benefit in turn from this exposure.’

Kolar is participating this year as a producer on Svet, a French/German/Kyrgyzstani effort from director Aktan Arym Kubat. Kolar comments: ‘The attention that the CineMart team pays to all the projects they receive, and all the people they host, is unique. In these strange times for independent cinema, I always worry that one day someone will decide this event is not so important anymore.

There shouldn’t be a financier, a local fund or a ministry that could ever have such a thought.’

Cinemart runs from 28 January until 1 February. See www.iffr.nl.

25-31 January 2007

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SHORT LIST

Van Nelle Factory, Saturday, Architecture of the Night

THURSDAY 25 JANUARY Art: Jiri Kovanda vs The Rest of The World What do Paris, Amsterdam and the Czech Republic all have in common? Jiri Kovanda.

This week, the Czech artist’s work will be presented at De Appel by Paris-based agency Work Method, an independent curatorial collective run by François Piron and Guillaume Désanges. Kovanda, who first appeared on the art scene in the late 1970s, has only recently been properly discovered in the West. His minimalist actions and ‘action-interventions’—such as gazing fixedly into the eyes of a stranger—were sometimes so subtle, they went unnoticed. The exhibition Jiri Kovanda vs The Rest of The World, which was originally organised by De Appel back in 1979, now makes a one-off reappearance. By now, hopefully, the audience will pick up on the message. (Dara Colwell) De Appel (Tues-Sun 11.00-18.00). Until 27 January.

Poetry: Het Huis van de Poëzie Today, there is a great public interest in poetry. ‘Great,’ says Utrecht’s Huis van de Poëzie, ‘but there’s too much attention to the mainstream.’ To tackle that problem, on Nationale Gedichtendag 2007—National Poetry Day—the Huis is organising the first anthology you can walk around in. It’s an anthology that consists of all genres of Dutch poetry: from inscrutable stanzas to light verse, from acclaimed wo/men of letters to noisy slam poets, to softly spoken intellectuals. The Huis aims to bring together all these different quantities by letting them perform in a big building: the Sonnenborgh observatory in Utrecht.

Not only is this a building of many rooms—literally and metaphorically—it also has an underground square, secret corridors and a sickbay for visitors’ poems. Come to the surgery in the library and your poems will be judged by a panel of professional wordsmiths. In the observatory you can meet stars of the literati—and perhaps become one yourself. (Floris Dogterom) Sonnenborgh, 19.30, Utrecht, €5.

Electronica: Mocky You could write pages and pages on this guy. Mocky is a Berlin-based Canadian producer who crafts his own material, while at the same time working with the likes of Jamie Lidell, Jane Birkin and Feist. Throughout his production career, Mocky has released three albums of his own and the most recent, Navy Brown Blues, is his best.

An odd, eccentric, wholly unconventional treat, the record rolls through kitsch, European-electronic music, rock and hiphop, of all things, alongside his trademark comic

lyricism. His rhymes are also odd, as ‘Mickey Mouse Motherfuckers’ and ‘In the Meantime’ exhibit, but his production value and sound is brilliant. Each instrument is carefully mixed, arranged and laid out like a painting, showcasing a talented producer and songwriter who also likes to crack a joke every now and again. Rarely does Mocky venture out of the studio under his own moniker, so tonight at the Paradiso should be unique, as it closes the Navy Brown Blues tour—and he’ll have a full band with him, as well. (Shain Shapiro) Paradiso, Kleine Zaal, 23.00, €12.50 + membership.

SATURDAY 27JANUARY Exhibition: Architecture of the Night I may be in the minority, but I love driving down Ringweg-Zuid at night. The modern architecture and the illumination of the WTC business district is surprisingly enchanting, and you can almost believe Amsterdam is a real city. It’s also a reminder that the fanciest of new buildings would be a flop without visionary artificial-lighting design, and this is what NAi in Rotterdam is celebrating in its latest exhibition. Packed with illuminated models, artworks and stunning night photography from key Rotterdam locations, there’s an environmental message, too, with focus on light pollution and energy efficiency. So it’s not all ‘Look at the pretty lights!’ And if you time your visit to re-emerge at sunset, continue down the road towards Euromast and the Maas; until 31 January, the ever-elegant Erasmus bridge is bathing beautifully in a purple glow to mark the opening of Rotterdam City of Architecture 2007. You’ll also get a cracking view of the waterfront fully illuminated. (Steven McCarron) Nederlands Architectuurinstituut (Tues-Sat 10.00-17.00, Sun 11.00-17.00), Rotterdam, Until 6 May.

VJs: Finale Visual Sensations All you DJs in the spotlight can take a back seat this weekend, while some of the best VJs from around the Netherlands and Belgium battle each other in the final of Visual Sensations ’06/’07. Each of the participating visual artists will have exactly 20 minutes to exhibit their one-of-a-kind talents in front of a jury of five media experts. Since the end of November, the second Visual Sensations has been slowly narrowing down, region by region, to find the most talented and artistic VJ. The goal is to inspire and support visual media and visual languages and—just like every other contest—if you’re the best, you win a prize. The best contestant bags €2,500 and gets to perform during Club Transmediale in Berlin, which is recognised as the biggest festival in Ger-

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many for art and digital culture. Those who lack a passion for participating in the field of visual arts might want to view this as a win/win situation and show up anyway, because the audience has a chance at winning the latest Sony high-definition camera.

(Nina Schein) Paradiso, 21.00, €10 before 00.00/€15.

SUNDAY 28 JANUARY Club: Luney Tunes Dance music is often riven by sub-genre after sub-genre, in an effort to differentiate a style of music whose inherent method and goal is fairly consistent. Bring forth a beat, make it interesting and hopefully infect listeners with the dancing bug. Sounds simple enough; but7 when acid-house, funky-trance and garage-techno are thrown into the mix, it becomes confusing more than anything else. Hell, at its rhythmic core, it’s all just dance music. Thankfully, some producers understand this and subsequently Amsterdam’s electronic music scene is flourishing. Two DJs who have permeated the holes in the city’s disco balls are Dead Parrot and Dogo, and to celebrate their success, on the eve of the first anniversary of their Prog as a Frog event series, their combined forces are staging Luney Tunes. On the bill with the DJing duo are Toovar, Back to Mars and a slew of other electronic artists, from a variety of sub-genres. Lose the labels, get on the dance floor and boogie at Wilhelmina. (Shain Shapiro) Café Pakhuis Wilhelmina, 15.00-01.00, €5, free before 20.00.

MONDAY 29 JANUARY Turkey Now: Sezen Aksu with the Metropole Orkest It’s the opening night of Turkey Now!—a government sponsored cultural festival that seems more necessary than ever, since those who fear a tsunami of Turks once the predominantly Muslim country joins the ranks of the European Union seem to have the upper hand in the current public debate. All the more so, since according to the organisers, music and art are good for the soul, so perhaps Turkey Now! could bridge some gaps. After all, it was singer Sezen Aksu who in the early stages of her musical career pushed Turkey into applying for the Eurovision Song Contest. She never won herself, but her protégée Sertab Erener did, in 2003. By that time, Aksu had established herself firmly as the mega-selling queen of Turkish pop, having written hundreds of songs, including Tarkan’s global lip-smacking smash ‘simarik’. To non-Turkish ears, her stuff sometimes may sound too slick, but Aksu has never strayed too far from her Anatolian roots and has received critical praise for her experiments with Western classical music. The Netherlands’ very own Metropole Orkest faces a challenging task.

(Peter Bartlema) Concertgebouw, Grote Zaal, 20.15, €37.50/€45.

TUESDAY 30 JANUARY Pop/Rock: Ben Folds Punk rock for geeks, dweebs and nerds, Ben Folds is the Billy Joel of rap metal. A sharp lyricist, a mean pianist and, most of all, a fantastic performer. So cancel all your other plans for tonight and get down to Paradiso, because this gig is long overdue-—so long that some European fans even felt they had to petition to stand a chance. Back in the ’90s, Ben Folds Five were probably one of the best and most underrated live acts around, and each of their albums should be regarded as essential. A rare trio with perfect chemistry, piano trampling fun, drum solos and the most awe-inspiring fuzz bass you could ever expect to hear, they could switch from a perfect pop chorus to an improvised audience jam in a second. The catch is: it’s now more than six years since they disbanded, and if you’re being critical, none of Folds’ solo releases since—nor even his quirky exploits with William Shatner—have come close to being essential. Nice? Fun? Yeah, sure, but never necessary. Don’t be put off, however, because onstage is another matter, and you can expect to be singing your heart out to songs old and new, even if you’ve never heard them before. (Steven McCarron) Paradiso, Grote Zaal, 19.30, €25 + membership.

Theatre: Thom Pain Just as every international capital city should, Amsterdam has an undeniable love for theatre and welcomes newcomers to the industry with open arms. And with every new year comes a new idea, which is why the Rozentheater is giving fresh directors the opportunity to demonstrate their talents at the Late Night Studio: a concept that allows the director a two-week run of their production. The first to test the waters is the off-Broadway smash—and finalist for a Pulitzer Prize—Thom Pain, written by award-winning Will Eno. This one-man show about a someone who is devastated by childhood neglect will either grab you and keep you tense the whole night, or creep you out. Since its debut in London, Thom Pain has been a raging success, and now that London and New York have spoken, it’s time that Amsterdam gets a taste of what all the fuss is about. In Dutch. (Nina Schein) Rozentheater, 22.15, €7.50.

Send details and images for listing consideration at least two weeks in advance to agenda@amsterdamweekly.nl.

25-31 January 2007

Amsterdam Weekly (double-sided drum) and the ghatam (clay pot). KIT Tropentheater, 20.00, €18 Classical: Jonge Nederlanders Featuring baritones Mattijs van de Woerd and Thomas Oliemans, and pianists Jeroen Sarphati and Ernst Munneke. Between them, expect performances of works from the likes of Britten, Caplet, Bridge and Fauré. Concertgebouw, Kleine Zaal, 20.15, €17.50 Classical: Kamerkoor Vocus Performing works by Distler, Bach, Buxtehude and Hindemith. English Reformed Church, 20.15, €14 Classical: Philharmonia of the Nations In a programme entitled ‘Evergreens & Masterpieces’, the Philharmonia will perform Chopin’s Piano Concerto No.2 in F, and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No.5 in E; with solo pianist Anna Fedorova and conducted by Carlos Miguel Prieto. Concertgebouw, Grote Zaal, 20.15, €28 Contemporary: Schönberg Ensemble Performing Im wunderschönen Monat Mai: Dreimal sieben Lieder nach Schumann und Schubert, the impressive comeback to composing and orchestrating of Reinbert de Leeuw, which he ‘recomposed’ especially for German film star and singer Barbara Sukowa. Both De Leeuw and Sukowa will be performing tonight, and concertgoers will also receive a special ticket offer for the current Sukowa season at Filmmuseum. Muziekgebouw, 20.30, €20

Mocky, see Thursday

MUSIC Send listing suggestions at least two weeks in advance to agenda@amsterdamweekly.nl

Thursday 25 January Classical: Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Performing the Dutch premiere of Debussy’s Preludes for orchestra, Ravel’s Piano Concerto for the Left Hand in D and Van Gilse’s Symphony No.2 in E; conducted by Markus Stenz. Concertgebouw, Grote Zaal, 20.15, €52.50 Heavy: A Wilhelm Scream Highly technical punk and hardcore quintet from Massachusetts. Support from No Trigger and Drunk Tank. Melkweg, 20.30, €12 + membership Classical: The Netherlands Symphony Orchestra Performing Strauss’ symphonic poem Also sprach Zarathustra—of 2001: A Space Odyssey fame—Till Eulenspiegel and Salome’s Dance; conducted by Gerd Albrecht. Muziekgebouw, 20.30, €30 Electronica: Finale Visual Sensations Final of the VJ talent contest, with local and international stars. See Short List. Paradiso, 21.00, €10/€15 Jazz: Tom Beek Quintet Presenting the CD White & Blue, a sideman steps out of the shadows. Saxophonist Beek has played with Michiel Borstlap, Amina Figarova, The Jazzinvaders, Karin Bloemen and Kasper van Kooten, but tonight it’s all about his own melodious and harmonically strong jazz. Bimhuis, 21.00, €12 Electronica: Mocky Berlin production wizardry. See Short List. Paradiso, Kleine Zaal, 23.00, €12.50 + membership

Sonata in A; Sibelius’ String Quartet in D, Voces Intimae; and Sinding’s Piano Quintet in E. Concertgebouw, Kleine Zaal, 20.15, €30 Contemporary: Nederlands Kamerkoor With Hans Werner Henze’s Orpheus Behind the Wire at the core of this programme, the choir will examine a world of violence that still emerges with optimism and beauty.

Featuring additional works by Ton de Leeuw, Peteris Vasks, Martins Vilums and Gabriel Jackson. Muziekgebouw, 20.30, €19 Pop/Rock: Winston Popprijs Local music contest, now in its 10th year. Winston Kingdom, 20.30, €6 Latin/Jazz: Vinicius Cantuaria This Brazilian singer, songwriter, guitarist and percussionist has collaborated over the years with Brazilian superstars like Caetano Veloso, Chico Buarque and Gilberto Gil, as well as ex-Talking Heads frontman David Byrne and Ryuichi Sakamoto. In solo form, Cantuaria is most renowned for his sweet, eccentric blend of sambas and bossa novas matched with pieces plucked from the worlds of jazz and experimental rock. Bimhuis, 21.00, €14 World: !Muziek Kapot Moet! A Sublime Frequencies special that kicks off with a screening of Sumatran Folk Cinema, a film by Mark Gergis and Alan Bishop. The duo will then be on hand to supply a fruitful night of South-east Asian, Middle Eastern and African music.

OCCII, 21.30, €5 Singer-songwriter: Goesting Acoustic folk, Americana and melodic pop. Maloe Melo, 22.00, €5 Pop: Prof Nomad’s The Kinks session Performing hits by the ’60s rockers, with this week’s band featuring special guests like Hans Vandenburg of Gruppo Sportivo and Eric de Vries of SiteWalk Experience.

Café Pakhuis Wilhelmina, 22.00, €7.50 Soul: The Souldiers Young eight-piece formation playing classic soul, New Orleans funk, folk and R&B. Badcuyp, Bovenzaal, 22.30, €8 Jazz: Friday Night Live! With special guest Benny Sings. Toomler, 23.00, free

Friday 26 January Hiphop: Streetbeatz Fresh hiphop from Heistrockah and rising star Solid Jay. Those lined up to spin include: DJ TLM (ML75 & Brainpower), DJ Jane Doe (The Basement & Streetbeatz), DJ Mix-it (Jam Jam & Club Jamaica) and DJ Cole-G. Bitterzoet, 20.00, €7.50 Classical: Academy of the Begijnhof Performing Libro II by the 16th-century Italian composer Dario Castello. English Reformed Church, 20.15, €15 Classical: Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra (See Thursday) Concertgebouw, Grote Zaal, 20.15, €52.50 Classical: Utrecht String Quartet Joined by pianist Nino Gvetadze, the quartet will perform Nielsen’s

Saturday 27 January Opera: Poliuto Donizetti’s 18th-century tragic opera, performed by the Radio Kamer Filharmonie, Groot Omroepkoor and a sparkling array of front-of-house vocal talents. Concertgebouw, Grote Zaal, 14.00, €42.50 World: Parur Violin Brothers These two violin maestros from southern India have a unique Asian style that is both emotionally moving and technically dazzling. Chances are you’ve never heard the violin sounding like this, particularly as it is tonight accompanied by two percussionists playing the mridangam

Pop/Rock: Winston Popprijs (See Friday) Winston Kingdom, 20.30, €6 Jazz: Chris Potter’s Underground Regarded as one of the most important sax players of his generation, the 36 year old from Chicago has journeyed down an electric groove jazz path lately, with his last album Underground exemplifying this. Aiding him tonight are guitarist Adam Rogers, drummer Nate Smith and Craig Taborn on Fender Rhodes. Bimhuis, 21.00, €18

Sunday 28 January Classical: La Cappellaccia Vocal quartet performing Renaissance works. Buiksloterkerk, 16.00, €10 Singer-songwriter: Garland Jeffreys This soulful American singer-songwriter’s career started up way back in the early ’70s. He still maintains a cult following in Europe (and the US), despite not dishing out a new record since 1997—which isn’t so bad when compared to Guns n’ Roses. Paradiso, Kleine Zaal, 18.00, €10 + membership Soul/Hiphop: Hipdrop Live soul, funk and beats, featuring members of C-mon & Kypski, Lefties Soul Connection and Zuco 103, plus special guest Paul van Kessel. Bitterzoet, 20.00, €5 Experimental: Transmission: Megafoon Under the simple theme of ‘noise’, a busy programme is in the pipelines tonight with live music, DJs, multimedia installations and lectures. Artists signed up include: Masonic Youth, Astarte, West Militia, RecPlay and the collective KOInc. Studio 80, 20.00, €5 Classical: Arabella Steinbacher & Robert Kulek Violin and piano duo performing works by Grieg, Schnittke, Brahms and Ravel. Concertgebouw, Kleine Zaal, 20.15, €28 Rock: Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan It’s now a year since their album Ballad of the Broken Seas was released, but this unlikely pair have managed to match their schedules and hit the road together. Pairing up the sweet-voiced Scottish songstress with the tarred vocal chords of the former Screaming Trees star may have surprised many, but it undoubtedly became one of the most critically acclaimed releases of 2006—and chances are this live pairing won’t be repeated. Support from William Elliott Whitmore. Paradiso, Grote Zaal, 20.45, €16 + membership Jazz: Monsieur Dubois A modern jazz attack featuring elements of jungle beats, funk, soul and Afro grooves. Renowned for their fierce live shows, they’ll be a sure-fire success in this WickedJazzsounds early programme. Sugar Factory, 21.00, €8.50 Jazz: Voyages Canada-Netherlands 2007 In this second phase of the Transatlantic exchange project, four ensembles are featured: Canada’s Quasar and Bradyworks and the Netherlands’ own Electra and the

13 Rosa Ensemble. Closing the evening is the Rosa Ensemble-composed piece ‘Let’s Move to Canada’, poignantly performed by all four groups. Bimhuis, 21.00, €14 Electronica: Subbacultcha! Ra-X (AKA Vincent Korenman) will be presenting a live soundtrack to the film Das Kabinett des Dr Caligari. A later set comes courtesy electro rocker/remixer The Drugstore Lad. Patronaat, Haarlem, 22.00, free

Monday 29 anuary Big band: Turkey Now: Metropole Orkest The opening performance of the Turkey Now Festival sees the infamous jazz big band conducted by Arjan Tien, with a lead performance by Turkish pop diva Sezen Aksu.

See Short List. Concertgebouw, Grote Zaal, 20.15, €37.50/€45 Jazz: André Gruarin Argentine jazz guitarist based in Amsterdam. Zaal 100, 20.30 Pop: The Fratellis Bouncy Britpop for 2007. Shifting bundles of units in the UK during the latter half of last year, the Glaswegian trio are now laying siege to Europe—successfully, too, having sold out Haarlem and Amsterdam shows on this jaunt. Melkweg, 20.30, sold out Pop/Rock: Mieke Stemerdink: The Giga Show A wild combination of styles alluding to Deutsch Grande Dames such as Zarah Leander, Marlene Dietrich and Nina Hagen, and then thrown around with the glamour of Roxy Music—all presented by singer Mieke Stemerdink and band. Sugar Factory, 21.00, €7.50 Rock: Subbacultcha! Experimental rock and percussive noise from Drum Ecstasy (Belarus), with support from Makazoruki. Bitterzoet, 21.00, €6 Experimental: DNK-Amsterdam Electro-acoustic live sessions in collaboration with the Beauty Unrealized project. Includes the duo Otomo Yoshihide and Sachiko M with Axel Doerner and Martin Brandlmayr.

OT301, 21.30, €4

Tuesday 30 January Pop/Rock: Ben Folds Sing us a song, you’re the piano man. See Short List. Paradiso, Grote Zaal, 19.30, €25 + membership World: The Cracow Klezmer Band Or should that be the Bester Quartet, as the ensemble are officially rebranding this month? Either way, expect some classic klezmer folk that will get your blood pumping, fronted by passionate and expressive accordionist Jaroslaw Bester. Concertgebouw, Kleine Zaal, 20.15, €27.50 Electronica: Chris Clark IDM and electronica from the English digital maestro signed to the Warp label.

And with his latest album of meditative sonics, Body Riddle, he’s actually trimmed his name down to just Clark, so don’t get confused about Paradiso using his old moniker. Paradiso, Kleine Zaal, 22.30, €7.50 + membership

Wednesday 31January Singer-songwriter: Badly Drawn Boy It’s only a few months since Damon Gough last landed at Paradiso, but this time round the English songwriter steps back up into the Grote Zaal. A quirky wordsmith with a remarkable ear for a pop melody, he may not demand the same level of prominence as his peak earlier this decade, but recent disc Born in the UK proved he still has stories to tell—albeit very British ones. Paradiso, Grote Zaal, 19.30, €15 Folk: Chris Smither American folk and blues singersongwriter. Paradiso, Kleine Zaal, 20.00, €7.50 + membership Jazz: Jazzed to the Max The vocal jazz group— fronted by five singers—is presenting their new CD Cream Cheese & Bagels. Special guest for the occasion is trumpeter Eric Vloeimans. Bimhuis, 20.30, €10 World: Sheng Xiaoyn, Jin Lisheng, Wang Yan & Cold Fairyland Contemporary Chinese musical adventures. Cold Fairyland from Shanghai are regarded as one of the most creative and skilled progressive

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rock bands in China. Combining Eastern melodies and rhythms with Western symphonic rock, they could be labelled as a more oriental variant of Dead Can Dance. Tonight they’re joined by two huge classical vocalists Sheng Xiaoyn and Jin Lisheng, and kuaban ‘rapper’ Wang Yan. Muziekgebouw, 20.30, €20

¿Que Pasa? Latin-crossover night with reggae, folk, ska, punk and mestizo. Melkweg, 23.00-late, €7 + membership

Jazz: Corrie van Binsbergen presents... Old and new: fresh interpretations of old ideas. Zaal 100, 21.00, €5

Fragile Breaks DJs and live acts with an adoration for the breakbeat. Café Pakhuis Wilhelmina, 21.00-late, €6

Electro rock: Matik Electro glam dance pop from this slick quartet, who’ve been driving audiences wild with their big beats and catchy melodies. Sugar Factory, 21.00, €7

Fire! Eclectic house sounds. Hotel Arena, 22.00-04.00

Hiphop/Jazz: The Melodynamics Jazzy and funky hiphop as the local outfit present their new EP The Basics. Winston Kingdom, 21.00, €5 Pop/Rock: Club 3voor12 Live radio and TV session featuring sets from Alabama garage rocker Dan Sartain, New Yorkers The Hold Steady and Jason Molina (formerly Songs:Ohia). Desmet Studios, 22.00, free.

Register for tickets at www.3voor12.nl Pop/Rock: Eagle*Seagull US indie rock band with their pop roots planted firmly in the past. Paradiso, Kleine Zaal, 22.30, €7 + membership

CLUBS Thursday 25 January Blue Note Trip Jazzy grooves from DJ Maestro and friends. Bitterzoet, 22.00-03.00, €7.50 Poppourri Student Night Pop hits aimed at stinking students. Club 8, 22.00-03.00, €5 Flex YourSpace Kid Goesting presents a live set from Hasselhoff (electro rock), followed by DJ sets from Pony vs Nonchalant, Wannabe A Star & Miss B Have, Delfos and Mr Broekievol & Mvr Blousievol. Flex Bar, 22.00-late, €7 Vreemd Outlandish electro and live performances.

Sugar Factory, 23.00-05.00, €7.50 Poptrash Three decades’ worth of rock, electro and hiphop with The Punchout DJs. Also included in the package is a live set from Swedish electro funk duo LoFi-Fnk. Melkweg, 23.00-late, €4

Friday 26 January 360 Featuring DJs Phonique (Dessous, Berlin), Patrice Bäumel and an Open Wound video performance by Arnout Hulskamp. 11, 22.00-04.00, €12 Penis in Vagina: Fashion Week Special An indie disco rave party with a fashion twist. There’s a live set from Namalee ’n’ The Namazonz, plus DJs Kill All Hipsters, Intifada Soundsystem and Snob! Club 8, 22.00-04.00, €5 Abe Duque With an exclusive live set from the New York techno producer/DJ, plus German electro from Die Schwarze Manner. Flex Bar, 22.00-late, €7 Rush Featuring Kaos Boys (Praha), Jaziah, Lucien Foort, O.Boogie, Cream and MC Madd Son. Panama, 23.00-04.00, €15 Wanted Now Deep, soulful and funky house sounds, featuring Dave Mayer, DJ Xavi, Roberto Ferranse and Jerven. Hotel Arena, 23.00-04.00, €8 GRA-Party: Candy Edition An initiative by students from the Gerrit Rietveld Academy who wanted to create an open stage and a meeting point for fellow artists to perform, exhibit their works—and party.

Including a live set from Sweet Sweet. Sugar Factory, 23.00-05.00, €7 Infrarouge Electro disco from DJs Dion and Steffi.

Odeon, 23.00-05.00, €10

Saturday 27 January

Sappig! Fresh and fruity sounds from Sunnery James, Philip Young, Dekky, Jeremaine S, Jay B, Jetset, MC Andy Sherman and percussionist Kazzikazs. Hotel Arena, 22.00-04.00, €16 Static Featuring Dan Berkson & James What (Pokerflat, London) and Static resident DJ Bart Skils. 11, 22.00-04.00, €12 Berlin Underground Half a day’s worth of bubbling microhouse in a unique location. Special guests include Junction SM (electro-jazz and unusual electronic experiments), Dimbiman, Ramchez & Pep and a four-hour set of electro exotica from Zip. Prinshendrikkade 33, 22.00-10.00, €18 Armada Featuring Markus Schulz, Remy, Mischa Daniels and Franklin. Panama, 23.00-04.00, €20 OH-NO! It’s Karaoke Time! A night of indie rock, disco and alternative karaoke. De Buurvrouw, 23.00-04.00, free UNK The underground electronic dance party for queers and cool kids. With DJs Lupe, N.O.O.K.Y. and Steffi. Club 8, 23.00-04.00, €8 ADHD Sessions Techno, minimal and electro session. Tonight sees the return to Amsterdam of British techno alchemist Luke Slater, who’ll be performing a three-hour set. Other guests include Den Haag producer Warren Fellow, resident DJ Recovery Sounds, Dia.chro.na (live), Jerome, Sander May, Tom Noah and Gary Teo. Studio 80, 23.00-05.00, €10 Free Saturdays With DJs Ricky Rivaro, Lucien Foort, Marc McRowland and Issie Star. The Powerzone, 23.00-05.00, free Passion Latin house, Motown house and electro cuts from DJs Martijn van Dishoeck and We-be-1. Odeon, 23.00-05.00, €10 Club Filth Wonderlab! presents an illegal fashion week closing party. DJs include Joost van Bellen, Wannabeastar & Miss B-Have, Mr Wix and The Virgin Tears (LA), while Malle Pietje & the Bimbo’s will be sleazing out live. BG, 23.00-late, €27 Trance Orient Express Trippy hippy trance party. Ruigoord, 23.00-late, €10 Rex...Electronation Live Featuring Audiofly, the ‘tech-meets-electronic house’ DJ/production duo of Luca Saporito and Anthony Middleton, a live set from Piet van Dongen and spinning by Terry Toner. Sugar Factory, 23.59-05.00, €15 Dance Arena Alternative dance, pop and rock. Melkweg, 23.59-late, €7 + membership

Sunday 28 January Luney Tunes A Prog as a Frog birthday celebration, the seedy worlds of psychedelic and prog trance, breakbeats, electro and lounge are rearing their dazed and confused heads in daylight for this party. Frog lickers of the world should remember to bring their psychedelic treats. See Short List. Café Pakhuis Wilhelmina, 15.00-01.00, €5, free before 20.00 Salsa Lounge It’s strictly salsa in the chapel, with music supplied by DJs Mauri and Radi. In the garden, Latin house is the flavour of the evening. Hotel Arena, 17.00-01.00, €15 Natural Featuring a four-hour set from Deep Dish star Sharam, with support from Miss Nine. Panama, 20.0003.00, €20 WickedJazzsounds Jazz, hiphop, broken beats, nujazz, funk and Afro sounds, as classic vinyl collides with live musicians. Sugar Factory, 23.00-05.00, €8.50

Monday 29 January Cheeky Monday Jungle and drum & bass night. Winston Kingdom, 22.00-03.00, €6

Club Artlaunch: Black Box Club Artlaunch: Black Box Underground electro from Eva Maria (Putsch), Lava (Get Physical Music), Martijn (eXcessiveMachine), VJ Pixelpimp, Toon & Boxylucha.

Studio 80, 23.00-late, €7

Wednesday 31January Ventilator Swinging Afrobeat and soulful Latin. Pacific Parc, 19.00-01.00, free Pop! An intoxicating mix of cocktails and pop music.

Sugar Factory, 23.00-04.00, €5

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GAY& LESBIAN Thursday 25 January Pimp My Drink Make it a strong one for €1 per extra shot. PRIK, Tues-Thur 16.00-01.00, Fri-Sat 16.00-03.00, free

Friday 26 January Vrouwenavond DJ Suna spins to a packed room of lesbians and their many-gendered friends. Café Sappho, 21.00-03.00, free

Theatre: 12th International Improvisation Theatre Festival International teams from Italy, Russia, Belgium, the US and the Netherlands take to the stage unrehearsed, letting the audience decide what they’re going to perform. See article on p.4 and www.festival.theatersport.nl. In English. Het Rozentheater, 20.30, €12.50 Theatre: Peanuts A play about responsibility and solidarity, Peanuts is very loosely based on the characters of the famous comic strip, offering fast-paced dialogue and short sentences. Just don’t show up expecting a Snoopy show. In Dutch. Compagnietheater, 20.30, €18 Dance: Something Raw 2007 This Flemish-Dutch dance festival brings together short choreographies, performances, installation art, film, debate, workshops and music. Now in its sixth edition, this year’s Something Raw presents 13 pieces by artists from all over the world under the theme of ‘irony, cynicism and humour as applied to the human body’. See www.nestheaters.nl. Various locations, times and prices

Twisted Tunes DJ Gina (wo)mans the decks all night long. PRIK, 22.00-03.00, free

Friday 26 January

Saturday 27 January

Theatre: De geschiedenis van de Familie Avenier (1 en 2) (See Thursday) Stadsschouwburg, 19.00, €15-€37.50

Unk The very cute DJ Lupe’s alternative gay-straight night for queers and coolios. Club 8, 22.00, €7 Twisted Tunes DJ Lestat alias Moreno twists them all night long. PRIK, 22.00-03.00, free Furball Hoots, mon! There’s a Scottish theme at tonight’s club for hairy, beary men and their admirers.

Kilt-wearing is encouraged, but poor jokes about the Gay Gordons must be checked in at the cloakroom.

More, 22.00-04.00, €15 Wasteland Fetish extravaganza featuring DJs Natarcia, Torture Garden’s Allen TG and Miss B-Have and Wannabeastar, with visuals from Micha Klein. Entertertainment including—eek!—a fire-breathing pussy and a fisting contest. Bus (€15 both ways and no, that’s not a euphemism) leaves from outside the Victoria Hotel (on Prins Hendrikkade) and is hosted by the Bus Bitches. See www.wasteland.nl. Outland, 22.0006.00, €45

Music/Theatre: My Barbarian LA performance collective My Barbarian combine live music together with fine arts, dance and theatre for very site-specific projects. This event, organised in collaboration with dance festival Something Raw, combines elements of classic Western culture with contemporary kitsch and glamour-cult. In English. De Appel, 20.00, €9 Theatre: 12th International Improvisation Theatre Festival (See Thursday) Rozentheater, 20.30, €12.50 Theatre: Peanuts (See Thursday) Compagnietheater, 20.30, €18 Music/Dance 301 With dancers Alexandra Manasse, Makikio Ito, Sylvain Meret and guests. Music performed by Colin McLean and Andy Moor. OT301, 21.00, €5

Kitty Out-of-town queer shenanigans at this squatty venue in Utrecht. Tonight, Kitty presents DJ duo Dark Territory. ACU, Utrecht, 23.00-04.00, €3.50

Music/Dance: This is a Picture of a Person I Don’t Know A multidisciplinary solo performance about loneliness and nostalgia by Pere Faura. The production uses scenes from Broadway musicals to illustrate the emotional conflicts of the narrator. De Brakke Grond, 21.30, €9

Sunday 28 January

Dance: Something Raw 2007 (See Thursday) Various locations, times and prices

Garbo in Exit Afternoon women’s disco with no-smoking dancefloor and Indonesian buffet. Exit, 16.00-22.00, €4.50

Saturday 27 January

Love Exiles Potluck Dinner The Love Exiles Foundation’s goal is to make the world safe for binational same-sex couples and their families by achieving legal recognition and full migration rights. Learn how you can become a part of the campaign, and bring your favourite dish to share. ABC Treehouse, 18.3021.30, €3 donation

Music/Theatre: My Barbarian (See Friday) De Appel, 20.00, €9

Tuesday 30 January Movie Night A proper gay classic tonight: Gus Van Sant’s My Own Private Idaho. PRIK, free

Wednesday 31January Bückstück: Brutale Musik A night for the ‘tune-curious’: three hours of eclectic sound-discoveries spanning all musical directions of the past 100 years.

PRIK, 21.00-24.00, free F*cking POP Queers & Artlaunch Cafe All the hits from electro to Madonna and all points between, so long as it pops. Studio 80, 23.00, free before 00.00, €5 after

Theatre: De geschiedenis van de Familie Avenier (1 en 2) (See Thursday) Stadsschouwburg, 19.00, €15-€37.50

Theatre: De Drie Zusters A modern adaptation of Chekhov’s masterpiece. In the original version, the three sisters long for the glory days of Moscow’s past, not realising they’re in the process of losing opportunities of the present. This variation shows six Moroccan men and women in Holland, pining for their home country. In Dutch. Ostadetheater, 20.30, €9.50 Theatre: 12th International Improvisation Theatre Festival (See Thursday) Rozentheater, 20.30, €12.50 Theatre: Peanuts (See Thursday) Compagnietheater, 20.30, €18 Music/Dance 301 (See Friday) OT301, 21.00, €5 Music/Dance: This is a Picture of a Person I Don’t Know (See Friday) De Brakke Grond, 21.30, €9 Dance: Something Raw 2007 (See Thursday) Various locations, times and prices

Sunday 28 January

STAGE Thursday 25 January Theatre: De geschiedenis van de Familie Avenier (1 en 2) Maria Goos’ new play depicts the history of a Dutch family throughout the decades and an everchanging society. Divided into four parts, part one takes place on New Year’s Eve 1955, while part two is set 15 years later—and the family, as well as the world they’re living in, has changed radically. Parts three and four to come in 2008. In Dutch. Stadsschouwburg, 19.00, €15-€37.50

Theatre: De geschiedenis van de Familie Avenier (1 en 2) (See Thursday) Stadsschouwburg, 14.30, €15-€37.50 Theatre: De Drie Zusters (See Saturday) Ostadetheater, 20.30, €9.50 Comedy: Jim Tavaré AKA that bloke with a double bass, English comic Tavaré is something of a surrealist, not to mention a musical talent. In English.

Toomler, 20.30, €13.50

Monday 29 January Dance: Danscombinatie 2007 Three generations of renowned female choreography in one evening. Includ-

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Amsterdam Weekly

16 ing works by Krisztina de Châtel, Conny Janssen and Ann van den Broek. Stadsschouwburg, 20.15, €11-€20

Tuesday 30 January Theatre: Rouw siert Electra Toneelgroep Amsterdam’s take on Eugene O’Neill’s 1931 play, which is based on the Greek tragedies The Oresteia. A key feature of TAMTAM 06 earlier in the winter, this Topstukken recommended hit is back for another extended Amsterdam run. Stadsschouwburg, 19.30, €11.50-€25 Theatre: Hemel op Aarde Part two of the Titanen Trilogie, Hemel is a furious quest for those special places that promise heavenly bliss on earth. In Dutch.

Frascati, 20.30, €12 Theatre: Peanuts (See Thursday) Compagnietheater, 20.30, €18

Thom Pain Theatre: Late Night Studio: Thom Pain A new latenight space allowing fresh directors the opportunity to present their work or to experiment on Rozentheater’s small stage. The opening performance is Thom Pain, Will Eno’s off-Broadway smash about a young man who appears out of the wilderness to offer his views about our world. In Dutch. See Short List. Rozentheater, 22.15, €7.50

Wednesday 31January Theatre: Rouw siert Electra (See Tuesday) Stadsschouwburg, 19.30, €11.50-€25 Theatre: Hemel op Aarde (See Tuesday) Frascati, 20.30, €12 Theatre: Peanuts (See Thursday) Compagnietheater, 20.30, €18 Theatre: Late Night Studio: Thom Pain (See Tuesday) Rozentheater, 22.15, €7.50

25-31 January 2007

ART Opening Borderline Behaviour An exhibition regarding animation as a state of mind rather than a cinematic genre.

With the pioneering animations of Emilie Cohl as the main point of reference, it becomes a meeting point for film projection, video beams, drawings, illustrations, sculpture, mural and photography. TENT (Tues-Sun 11.00-18.00, Daily during IFFR), Rotterdam, opens Thursday, until 18 March Camera Lucida: Sonochemical Observatory An immersive spatial art work creating a fleeting, ephemeral materiality by intersecting ultrasound with hyperlight: in essence, creating an unstable sonic aurora. Developed in collaboration with numerous physics research labs, the ‘observatory’—a transparent gas-filled chamber—converts sound waves into light by employing a phenomenon known as sonoluminescence. Or so they claim. V2_ (Daily 11.00-18.00), Rotterdam, opens Thursday, until 4 February

Jiri Kovanda vs The Rest of The World , see Opening

Jiri Kovanda vs The Rest of The World Czech performance artist contra mundum. See Short List. De Appel (Tues-Sun 11.00-18.00), opens Thursday, closing Saturday

depictions of flowers, mainly by Dutch artists or artists who worked in the Netherlands. Teylers Museum (Tues-Sat 10.00-17.00, Sun 12.00-17.00), Haarlem, opens Saturday, until 3 June

Ringel Goslinga: Family Tree A black-and-white photo series showing portraits of people in the artist’s immediate surroundings. By presenting these in the form of a family tree, Goslinga illustrates the social structures that develop out of a personal network of friends, family and coincidental acquaintances. Foam (Sun-Wed 10.00-17.00, Thur, Fri 10.00-21.00), opens Friday, until 7 March

Lucebert. Drawings Gouaches, drawings in Indian ink and works on paper in mixed media, dating from 1948 to 1993. There’s also an accompanying publication with text (in Dutch and English) by the Dutch author Cyrille Offermans. CoBrA Museum (Tues-Sun 11.00-17.00), opens Saturday, until 3 June

The Girlfriend Experience The rampant growth of online avatar communities such as Second Life and World of Warcraft has enabled the creation of a personal online social and economic existence.

Simultaneously, this triggers inherent questions about such an existence, as it questions what the consequences will be for reality. But here, Martin Butler presents four human avatars to play with. Log in at home to play with your character of choice—direct the avatar, explore the space and challenge him or her. These four participants can also be observed live in their Analog Villa three nights a week. Mediamatic (Wed-Fri 18.00-23.00), opens Friday, until 9 March TJ Wilcox : A Fair Tale & Garland One The American artist TJ Wilcox makes short films featuring characters such as Marie Antoinette, the Roman emperor Hadrian and the family Romanov’s bull dog.

By using subtitles and refraining from clear story lines in favour of an open relationship between images and content, Wilcox leaves room for the viewers’ imagination. Including Garland One and Wilcox’s most recent work, A Fair Tale. Stedelijk Museum CS (Daily 10.0018.00), opens Friday, until 4 March Architecture of the Night: Luminous Buildings Pretty, pretty lights. See Short List. Nederlands Architectuurinstituut (Tues-Sat 10.00-17.00. Sun 11.0017.00), Rotterdam, opens Saturday, until 6 May Flowers Under the Magnifying Glass: A Homage to Linnaeus A celebration of the 300th anniversary of the Swedish botanist Carolus Linnaeus (1707-78), who studied and worked in the Netherlands from 1735 to 1738. In collaboration with the National Herbarium Nederland, this exhibition provides an overview of

Sven-Ole Frahm: Grace of Schwerkraft Paintings by the German artist, whose work is characterised by socalled ‘dual images’. The first stage of his process includes pouring paint and letting it run across the canvas, or onto long strips of fabric. Sections are then cut out according to a predetermined geometric shape, and as these patterns form, a new image with its own geometry is created. Aschenbach & Hofland Galleries (Wed-Sat 12.00-17.00), opens Saturday, until 4 March Van Huis Uit... The results of a research project by the Meertens Instituut about immigrant families and interiors of their homes. The project focuses on the influence that class, ethnicity and tradition have on way of life, and the resulting exhibition presents a collage of photographs and stories about migration, material culture, identity and cultural exchange. See article on p.5. Imagine IC (Tues, Wed, Fri, Sat 11.0017.00, Thur 11.00-21.00), opens Saturday, until 30 April

Museums Foam_3h: Diederik Meijer—1900 Groom Road A series of vivid portraits of inhabitants of a New Orleans trailer park, whose belongings were destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. Foam (Sun-Wed 10.00-17.00, Thur, Fri 10.00-21.00), closing Friday Jiri Kovanda vs The Rest of The World Czech performance artist contra mundo. See Short List.

Amsterdams Historisch Museum (Tues-Sun 11.0018.00), closing Saturday Het Schaduwkabinet: Distorted Fabric Curator Natasa Petresin presents a short-term installation by artists Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige. A two-

part video screening will also be shown on 19 and 20 January at 21.00. All this occurs within the framework of ‘Art in the New Field of Visibility’, a collaboration among De Appel, De Brakke Grond, Montevideo and Maison Descartes, which deals with the interaction of media and the arts, and the role of today’s image culture. De Appel (Tues-Sun 11.00-18.00), closing Saturday Studenten van de Rietveld Academie Final-year students at the Rietveld present works from photography to installations, performances to painting. Oude Kerk (Mon-Sat 11.00-17.00, Sun 13.00-17.00), closing Sunday Winter A series of photographs made in Hortus by Marnix Goossens, asking what does winter for the botanical garden really mean? Hortus Botanicus (Daily 09.00-04.00), closing Wednesday The ‘Jewish’ Rembrandt In recent centuries a romantic myth has developed suggesting Rembrandt had a special bond with Jews. This exhibition will attempt to separate any such facts from fiction. Joods Historisch Museum (daily 11.00-17.00), until 4 February Erik van Lieshout: This Can’t Go On (Stay With Me) An overview of the Rotterdam artist’s commentary on modern life in all its varieties, expressed in installations, films, drawings and paintings. Van Lieshout’s newest film, Rock, is shown in a drive-in cinema that has been erected in the museum’s hall. Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen (Tues-Sat 10.00-17.00, Sun 11.00-17.00), Rotterdam, until 4 February Geroofd, Maar van Wie? Hosted in the Amsterdam theatre that became a Jewish deportation centre during World War II, this exhibition’s focus is on works of art taken during wartime, and later returned, though remaining unclaimed. Hollandsche Schouwburg (Daily 11.00-16.00), until 4 February Paul Kooiker: Paradise Twenty-One Various photo sets from the last ten years and new video works made

by Dutch photographer Kooiker. Reflecting his fascination for perception, he focuses on the female form, which he produces in many different ways. Foam (Sun-Wed 10.00-17.00, Thur, Fri 10.00-21.00), until 11 February Tour de France 1646 Drawings by Rembrandt’s student Lambert Doomer and his friend Willem

Amsterdam Weekly

25-31 January 2007 Schellinks, made during a trip along the River Loire.

Rembrandthuis (Mon-Thur, Sat, Sun 10.00-17.00, Fri 10.00-21.00), until 11 February Facts, Fictions and Stories The first solo exhibition in the Netherlands by the South African photographers Adam Broomberg (1970) and Oliver Chanarin (1971), featuring their most recent work, Chicago . This collection shows various aspects of the war and propaganda in Israel, as well as the series Mr. Mkhize’s Portrait, which casts a glance at South Africa 10 years after the end of apartheid. Stedelijk Museum CS (Fri-Wed 10.00-18.00), until 25 February Anton Rooskens A tribute to Anton Rooskens (19061976), co-founder of the CoBrA movement and one of the Netherlands’ leading post-war experimentalists.

This extensive exhibition features painterly highlights from his body of work. CoBrA Museum (Tues-Sun 11.00-17.00), until 25 February Gregory Crewdson: Retrospective 1985-2005 Since the mid-’80s, New York photographer Crewdson has created six carefully staged photo-series in which he presents the world as an obscure cinematographic dream. Against the background of suburban America, he explores the fears, neuroses and desires that are deeply rooted in everyday modern life. Fotomuseum (Tues-Sun 12.00-18.00), Den Haag, until 25 February Bare Hidden poverty in the Netherlands is the theme for this year’s annual ‘Document Nederland’ photography assignment organised by the Rijksmuseum and NRC Handelsblad. The works show those who literally live ‘below the minimum’. Photographer Geert van Kesteren leads the exhibition. Huis Marseille (Tues-Sun 11.00-18.00), until 4 March Bert Teunissen: Domestic Landscapes Taking more than 300 photos for this project over the last decade, Teunissen has been in search of the light that he remembers from his parental home, while also documenting an authentic way of life that is disappearing.

Huis Marseille (Tues-Sun 11.00-18.00), until 4 March

Bodies Something of a controversial exhibition, though undoubtedly also hugely popular as it tours the world, this is one anatomy lesson you won’t forget. Making use of dissected corpses in a range of poses, real foetuses and a large selection of human organs, the collection aims to educate and remind us how remarkable the human body is. Just think twice if you’re on the squeamish side. Beurs van Berlage (Thur-Sat 10.0022.00, Sun-Wed 10.00-18.00), until 15 March Geef mij maar Amsterdam A melodious tribute to Mokum as AHM ventures into the musical past and present. From classic Amsterdam liedjes that reverberated from pub doorways to the modern beats and urban rhymes born from some of the city’s poorest districts, this is a chance to re-hear some sonorant moments and enjoy a singalong, too. Amsterdams Historisch Museum (Mon-Fri 10.00-17.00, Sat, Sun 11.00-17.00), until 18 March Kees de Kort A tribute to 40 years of painting, illustrating and designing by the Dutch artist. His work shows biblical inspiration but also a great fascination with animals. Bijbels Museum (Mon-Sat 10.00-17.00, Sun 11.00-17.00), until 18 March August Sander: People of the 20th Century A representative selection of vintage prints from the German photographer’s (1876-1964) world-famous project.

Proposing to chart the entire structure of society of his day, the result was a sociological project, a historical document and a photographic masterpiece. Foam (Sun-Wed 10.00-17.00, Thur, Fri 10.00-21.00), until 21 March Objects for Eternity: Egyptian Treasures from Antiquity Approximately 150 objects from ancient Egypt, detailing how intensively and carefully the ancient Egyptians prepared for the eternity they believed was in store for every decent person following death. Allard Pierson Museum (Tues-Fri 10.00-17.00, Sat, Sun 13.00-17.00), until 25 March Eva’s Story Showing paintings of Erich and Heinz Gieringer made while they were in hiding from the Nazi prosecutors. Verzetsmuseum (Tues-Fri 10.0017.00), until 6 April Aanwinsten 2005-2006 A presentation of recent purchases, including pieces by Francis Alÿs, Mike Kelley, William Kentridge, Philip-Lorca deCorcia, Aernout Mik and Thomas Ruff. Stedelijk Museum CS (Fri-Wed 10.00-18.00), until 9 April Istanbul From Byzantium to the Ottomans, from Constantinople to Istanbul: the pieces from the Nieuwe Kerk’s winter exhibition are born of one of the richest and most diverse histories in the world. The exhibition focuses on Ottoman heritage, displaying nearly 300 treasures of the sultans—including exhibits from Topkapi Palace Museum. Nieuwe Kerk (Thur 10.00-22.00, Fri-Wed 10.00-18.00), until 15 April Behind the Curtains Fifteen innovative architectural designs by Willem Jan Neutelings and Michiel Riedijk, whose expressive buildings are icons within cities that are appreciated equally by tenants and passers-by.

Museum Hilversum (Tues-Sat 11.00-17.00, Sun 12.0017.00), Hilversum, until 6 May

Capricious Capricious Inspired by the New York/Amsterdam based cutting-edge photography magazine of the same name, Capricious presents works by six young and experimental photographers. Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam (Tues-Sun 11.00-17.00), until 4 March Collectors in St Petersburg A celebration of the cosmopolitan nature of early 20th-century St Petersburg, when the city was so prosperous that its art scene flourished and expansive collections were born. This exhibition introduces four key collectors from the period, each with their own preference for a particular school, country or era. Hermitage Amsterdam (Daily 10.00-17.00), until 11 March French Passion During the early 20th century, private collectors in the Netherlands acquired many masterpieces by painters including Monet, Daubigny, Cézanne and other famed French artists. This exhibition provides an overview of the pieces united at the time. Centraal Museum (Tues-Sun 11.00-17.00), Utrecht, until 11 March Just In Time The annual Municipal Art Acquisitions exhibitions allow for an overview of cultural activity in Amsterdam in the areas of visual art, photography, design and applied arts. Each year the show pivots on one discipline—or a combination of various disciplines—and works are acquired from it for the Stedelijk Museum collection. Stedelijk Museum CS (Fri-Wed 10.00-18.00), until 11 March

Beauty and the Bead: From Madonna to the Maasai This first exhibition ever to focus on beads as a worldwide phenomenon features beaded costumes from every epoch and all corners of the earth. Among the displays are a royal robe from Congo, a parka from the North Pole and a mummy from Ancient Egypt, as well as a glamorous dress worn by Marilyn Monroe, Madonna’s shoes and haute couture by Versace and John Galliano. Tropenmuseum (Tues-Sat 10.00-17.00, Sun 12.00-17.00), until 13 May Moderniteit in de Tropen: Architectuur in Nederlands-Indië In the beginning of the 20th century, architects working in the Dutch East Indies created a unique style that combined their Dutch background with local traditions and influences from modern American architecture. This collection features photographs, drawings and maquettes from Indonesia between 1850 and 1950. Nederlands Architectuurinstituut (Tues-Sat 10.00-17.00, Sun 11.00-17.00), Rotterdam, until 3 June Interventions Three exhibitions: Vases by Marieke van Diemen, Wait to Wait, an installation by Georgian artist Andro Wekua, and Four Vegetative Sleeping Rooms by Gerda Steiner and Jörg Lenzlinger. Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen (Tues-Sat 10.00-17.00, Sun 11.00-17.00), Rotterdam, until 28 October

Galleries Jeanne Oosting Prijs An annual award given out in the name of artist Jeanne Bieruma Oosting (18981994). Exhibited works this year include the oil paintings of Rotterdammer Dora Dolz and the aquarelle works of Henri de Haas from Amsterdam. Arti et Amicitiae (Tues-Sun 13.00-18.00), closing Sunday

Nieuwe leden At the beginning of each year, Arti et Amicitiae traditionally exhibits works by artists who’ve joined the society in the past year. A large variety of works including paintings, photos, projections, sculptures, objects and video art usher in 2007. Arti et Amicitiae (Tues-Sun 13.00-18.00), closing Sunday No Strings Attached This collaboration between fashion designer Catta Donkersloot and photographer Lisa Kortenhorst presents the designs in a new situation, playing with the viewer’s expectations and perceptions. Part of Amsterdam Fashion Week. Melkweg Galerie (Wed-Sun 13.00-20.00), closing Sunday Lloyd History Graphical works by V Wiertz, the calligrapher of the Lloyd Hotel, and photo portraits of the builders of the hotel by S van den Horst. Lloyd Hotel (Daily), closing Wednesday Moscow Zandvoort Helsinki Photography of apartment buildings by Mieke Woestenburg. De Kijkkasten (Daily), closing Thursday The Bridge: The Visual Language of Reza Abedini An overview installation of the Iranian graphic designer, who was recently given the Prins Claus Award in acknowledgement for preserving Iran’s artistic heritage while still making contemporary and innovative creations. Dutch graphic designers Irma Boom and Hans Wolbers assist Abedini in curatorship. Platform 21 (Wed-Sun 12.00-18.00), until 4 February Jonas Ohlsson Bold new works by the Swedish artist.

De Praktijk (Wed-Sat 13.00-18.00), until 4 February Von Zamla Mina Mannar (& Ida) Mixed works from ten Swedish artists. De Praktijk (Wed-Sat 13.00-18.00), until 4 February Bert Loerakker Recent works by the artist, who paints and displays dual images. On the left are expressive paintings, often inspired by landscapes. To the right are contrasting monochromatic and geometric concepts. Galerie Krijger + Katwijk (Wed-Sat 12.00-18.00), until 4 February Daniel Hofstede & Benjamin Roth Contemporary works from two young artists. Horse Move Project (FriSun 14.00-20.00), until 4 February Winterlicht A group exhibition from artists of the gallery. AdK Actuele Kunst (Wed-Sat 12.30-17.30), until 10 February Ready Media The term ‘ready media’ is used to explain the phenomenon of visual stereotypes that are created by the omnipresence of contemporary media culture.

This exhibition deals with the interaction between media and art, and with the influence that ‘ready media’ has on our way of seeing. Montevideo/Time Based Arts (Tues-Sat 13.00-18.00), until 10 February Investigations Featuring the works of Ziad Antar, Alain Declercq, Clarisse Hahn, Florence Lazar & Raphael Grisey, Bruno Serralongue and Olivier Zabat, Investigations forms an archive using five videos on monitors and a photographic series, as the artists investigate how contemporary artists share and document information. Maison Descartes (Mon-Thur 10.00-18.00, Fri 10.00-17.00), until 10 February Octagon/////Zonder Titel New installations by Bas Louter and Folkert Joore. P/////AKT (Thur-Sun 14.0018.00), until 11 February Frank Hannon: Upside Down Rabbit Country Irish artist Frank Hannon presents musical installations and collages. Galerie Juliette Jongma (Wed-Sat 13.0018.00), until 17 February Jan van de Pavert Showing works by Dutch sculptor and painter Van de Pavert (1960). Galerie Paul Andriesse (Tues-Fri 11.00-18.00, Sat 14.00-18.00), until 17 February Paradise Love Bar A group exhibition featuring works by three young and upcoming artists: installations and drawings by Aisling Hedgecock (Ireland); video art and photographs by Alice Finbow (England); and installations and paper cut-outs by Sangeeta Sandrasegar (Australia). Galerie Gabriel Rolt (Wed-Sun 12.0018.00), until 24 February Kunst in Exodus 2007 Artists in exile. This collection features works from Persheng Warzandegan, Shafiq Soroush, Raouf Saleh and Zenon Abdalla. De Levante (Wed-Sun 13.00-17.30), until 24 February Between Dog and Wolf Chrystel Lebas’ new body of work, created between 2003 and 2006, comprises photographs taken in forests in England, France, Germany, Finland and Japan. By taking the pictures during twilight, the French photographer has tried to capture the almost mystical atmosphere that fascinates her. Gallery Vassie (Wed-Sat 13.00-18.00), until 24 February Helen Verhoeven In Verhoeven’s paintings, a sense of unrest often combines with a feeling of harmony as she blends everyday sceneries with unusual and sometimes disgusting images. Galerie Fons Welters (Tues-Sat 13.00-18.00), until 24 February

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Amsterdam Weekly

18 Min Kim New drawings and paintings. Torch Gallery (Thur-Sat 14.00-18.00), until 24 February Rutger Emmelkamp Emmelkamp’s objects are often the result of a long and intensive labour process yielding a focus on the coherence of concept, work and meaning. Galerie Fons Welters (Tues-Sat 13.0018.00), until 24 February Thomas Hoepker: Muhammed Ali Photographs of the infamous charismatic boxer, in and out of the ring, by the renowned German photographer. Galerie Wouter van Leeuwen (Thur-Sat 12.00-18.00), until 24 February Althea Thauberger: Alone Again (In the Likeness of Life) Canadian artist Althea Thauberger’s first solo show in Europe, this exhibition presents five video and audio works, all of which are made up of collective performances—the result of her collaborations with various groups and communities—and contain social and political allegories with an almost purist and vivid visuality. bak (Wed-Sat 12.00-17.00, Sun 13.00-17.00), Utrecht, until 25 February W139 Coloured Reopening exhibition with works by Iris Kensmil, Paul Drissen, Peter Vos, Adriaan Rees and Rob Birza. W139 (Sun-Thur 11.00-20.00, Fri, Sat 11.0022.00), until 25 February Corcoran Subtitled ‘Strategies of Confinement in the Age of Biopolitics’, featuring installation works by Alexandra Croitoru, Johan Grimonprez, Mladen Miljanovic, Solmaz Shahbazi and Sean Snyder. De Brakke Grond (Mon 10.00-18.00, Tues-Fri 10.00-20.30, Sat 13.00-20.30, Sun 13.00-17.00), until 25 February

still a variety of fun things to do during this fab-ric-ulous week. Besides over 60 labels displaying their newest creations in fabric to a closed public, there are workshops, exhibitions, film screenings and, of course, countless trips down the catwalk. The Laundry Days programme features special sample sales and bargains, as well as photography, parties and a shop window contest among 90 different locations throughout the city. For the full whack see www.amsterdamfashionweek.com. Various locations, times and prices,

Friday 26 January Symposium: Archeologie en publiek An archaeological symposium about the relationship of archaeology and the public. See www.publieksarcheologie.nl. In Dutch. Felix Meritis, 10.00, €30 Book presentation: Tieka Masfar’s Made from Scrap Presenting her new book/concept Made from Scrap—a book, a CD and a performance—Masfar will perform her poetry, one-liners, quotes, snapshots and scraps of thoughts. ABC Treehouse, 20.00, free

11 Oosterdokskade 3-5, 625 5999 ABC Treehouse Voetboogstraat 11, 423 0967

Kunsthal Museumpark, Westzeedijk 341, Rotterdam, 010 440 0301

ACU Voorstraat 71, Utrecht, 030 231 4590

De Levante Hobbemastraat 28, 671 5485

AdK Actuele Kunst Prinsengracht 534, 320 9242

Lloyd Hotel Oostelijke Handelskade 34, 419 1840

Akhnaton Nieuwezijds Kolk 25, 624 3396

Maison Descartes Vijzelgracht 2A, 531 9500

Allard Pierson Museum Oude Turfmarkt 127, 525 2556

Maloe Melo Lijnbaansgracht 163, 420 4592

Amsterdams Historisch Museum Kalverstraat 92, 523 1822

Mediamatic Post CS, Oosterdokskade 5, 638 9901

De Appel Nieuwe Spiegelstraat 10, 625 5651

Melkweg Galerie Marnixstraat 409, 531 8181

ARCAM Prins Hendrikkade 600, 620 4878

Montevideo/Time Based Arts Keizersgracht 264, 623 7101

Arti et Amicitiae Rokin 112, 624 5134

More Rozengracht 133, 528 7459

Aschenbach & Hofland Galleries Bilderdijkstraat 165C, 412 1772

Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen Museumpark 18-20, Rotterdam, 010 441 9400

KochxBos Gallery 1e Anjeliersdwarsstraat 3-5, 681 4567

Melkweg Lijnbaansgracht 234A, 531 8181

Muziekgebouw Piet Heinkade 1, 788 2010

Bethaniënklooster Barndesteeg 6, 625 0078 Beurs van Berlage Damrak 277, 530 4141

Nederlands Architectuurinstituut Museumpark 25, Rotterdam, 010 440 1200

Film: Postivisme stimuleert talent Screening of the film loop So, do you come here often? by Dafna Maimon. 11, 21.00, free

BG Post CS, Oosterdokskade 5, 626 2256

Nieuwe Kerk entrance on the Dam, 638 6909

Bijbels Museum Herengracht 366-368, 624 2436

Noorderkerk Noordermarkt 44, 626 6436

Bimhuis Piet Heinkade 3, 788 2150

OCCII Amstelveenseweg 134, 671 7778

Literature Festival: Weerwoord 07 (See Thursday) Theater Bellevue, Paradiso, Melkweg, Stadsschouwburg, De Balie, various times and prices

Bitterzoet Spuistraat 2, 521 3001

Odeon Singel 460, 624 9711

De Brakke Grond Nes 45, 626 6866

Ostadetheater Van Ostadestraat 233 D, 679 5096

Buiksloterkerk Buiksloterpad 10, 493 3468

OT301 Overtoom 301, 779 4913

Fashion: Amsterdam International Fashion Week (See Thursday) Various locations, times and prices.

De Buurvrouw Sint Pieterspoortsteeg 29, 625 9654

Oude Kerk Oudekerksplein 23, 625 8284

Café Pakhuis Wilhelmina Veemkade 576, 419 3368

Outland Prins Alexanderlaan 37, 2580999

Café Sappho Vijzelstraat 103, 423 1509

P/////AKT Zeeburgerpad 53, 06 5427 0879

Saturday 27 January

Centraal Museum Nicolaaskerkhof, Utrecht, 030 236 2362

Pacific Parc Polonceaukade 23, 488 7778

Literature Festival: Weerwoord 07 (See Thursday) Theater Bellevue, Paradiso, Melkweg, Stadsschouwburg, De Balie, various times and prices

Club 8 Admiraal de Ruyterweg 56B, 685 1703

Pakhuis de Zwijger Piet Heinkade 179-181, 788 4444

CoBrA Museum Sandbergplein 1-3, Amstelveen, 547 5050

Panama Oostelijke Handelskade 4, 311 8680

Compagnietheater Kloveniersburgwal 50, 520 5320

Paradiso Weteringschans 6-8, 626 4521

Fashion: Amsterdam International Fashion Week (See Thursday) Various locations, times and prices

Concertgebouw Concertgebouwplein 2-6, 671 8345

Patronaat Zijlsingel 2, Haarlem, 023 517 5858

Consortium Veemkade 570, 06 2611 8950

Platform 21 Prinses Irenestraat 19, 344 9449

Desmet Studios Plantage Middenlaan 4A, 521 7100

Pleintheater Sajetplein 39, 665 4568

English Reformed Church Begijnhof 48, 624 9665

The Powerzone Spaklerweg, 681 8866

Exit Reguliersdwarsstraat 42, 625 8788

De Praktijk Lauriergracht 96, 422 1727

Tour: Amsterdam Through the Ages A new monthly programme that features a guided tour of the Amsterdams Historisch Museum and a city walk aimed at unlocking secrets of the city. The opening combo looks at how a medieval village became a global city. In English. Amsterdams Historisch Museum, 12.30, €15. Museum admission not included in tour price

Felix Meritis Keizersgracht 324, 626 2321

PRIK Spuistraat 109, 06 4544 2321

Filmmuseum Vondelpark 3, 589 1400

Public Space with a Roof Overtoom 301, 06 1117 4239

Flex Bar Pazzanistraat 1, 486 2123

Rembrandthuis Jodenbreestraat 4, 520 0400

Foam Keizersgracht 609, 551 6546

Het Rozentheater Rozengracht 117, 620 7953

Fotomuseum Stadhouderslaan 43, Den Haag, 070 338 1144

Sonnenborgh Zonnenburg 2, Utrecht, 030 230 2818

Frascati Nes 63, 626 6866

Literature Festival: Weerwoord 07 (See Thursday) Theater Bellevue, Paradiso, Melkweg, Stadsschouwburg, De Balie, various times and prices

Stadsschouwburg Leidseplein 26, 624 2311

Galerie Fons Welters Bloemstraat 140, 423 3046 Galerie Gabriel Rolt Elandsgracht 34, 785 5146

Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam Rozenstraat 59, 422 0471

Galerie Juliette Jongma Gerard Douplein 23, 463 6904

Stedelijk Museum CS Oosterdokskade 5, 573 2911

Galerie Krijger + Katwijk Lange Leidsedwarsstraat 198200, 627 3808

Strand West Stavangerweg

Galerie Paul Andriesse Withoedenveem 8, 623 6237

Sugar Factory Lijnbaansgracht 238, 627 0008

Galerie Wouter van Leeuwen Hazenstraat 27, 06 5203 1540

TENT Witte de Withstraat 50, Rotterdam, 010 413 5498

Gallery Vassie 1e Tuindwarsstraat 16, 489 4042 Heineken Music Hall ArenA Boulevard 590, 0900 300 1250 Hermitage Amsterdam Nieuwe Herengracht 14, 530 8751

Amsterdam International Fashion Week Fashion: Amsterdam International Fashion Week (See Thursday) Various locations, times and prices

Thursday 25 January

Fashion: Amsterdam International Fashion Week Fashion, fashion and more fashion. And even if you’re not a runway model or haute couture designer there’s

KIT Tropentheater Mauritskade 63, 568 8711

Museum Hilversum Kerkbrink 6, Hilversum, 035 629 2826

Beauty Unrealized A research project dedicated to the investigation of beauty and the status of objects.

During this project, the gallery space will become a library, containing lists of items (books, films, articles and music) submitted by different artists, film-makers, writers and composers, whose works have been influenced by those objects. New artists will step into the frame every two weeks, and from Monday 29 January to 4 February you can see Benoit Goupy’s installation Le Source. Public Space with a Roof (Daily 15.0019.00), until 8 April

Literature Festival: Weerwoord 07 The festival of words—sung, spoken, written or depicted—this year focuses on ‘A Society in Confusion’. More than a hundred writers from all over the world will contribute to the wide-ranging programme, which features a swinging poetry ballroom, theatre performances, musical interpretations of literary classics, a night of porn and literature, street poetry and much more. It really is action-packed, so to get a full grasp of what’s doing down on a daily basis, see www.leidsepleintheaters.nl Theater Bellevue, Paradiso, Melkweg, Stadsschouwburg, De Balie, various times and prices

ADDRESSES

Badcuyp 1e Sweelinckstraat 10, 675 9669

Beauty Unrealized

Poetry: Het Huis van de Poëzie The official opening of the Netherlands’ first poetry institute. See Short List.

Sonnenborgh, Utrecht 19.30, €5

De Kijkkasten Sint Nicolaasstraat

bak Lange Nieuwstraat 4, Utrecht, 030 231 6125

Sunday 28 January

EVENTS

25-31 January 2007

Monday 29 January Discussion: Women Inc Entitled ‘Gelijke beloning nu!’, this week’s programme points to the fact that gender-related salary disparities are higher in Holland than in neighbouring countries—amounting to a 17% difference in payment on average. Paulien Osse, the director of Internationale Loonwijzer, discusses greater initiatives for equal salaries. In Dutch. Pakhuis de Zwijger, 20.00, free

Tuesday 30 January Discussion: Dizkuzz in Paradiso Reacting to the inflating number of pop music contests and battle-ofthe-bands—not that it’s a new phenomenon—this discussion programme looks at the pros and the cons through featured appearances by winners, losers and awards organisers. Paradiso, 19.00, free

Ruigoord Ruigoord 15, 497 5702

Studio 80 Rembrandtplein 70, 521 8333

Teylers Museum Spaarne 16, Haarlem, 023 516 0960 Toomler Breitnerstraat 2, 670 7400 Torch Gallery Lauriergracht 94, 626 0284 Tropenmuseum Linnaeusstraat 2, 568 8200

Hollandsche Schouwburg Plantage Middenlaan 24, 531 0340

Tropentheater, Kleine Zaal Linnaeusstraat 2, 568 8500

Horse Move Project Oosterdokskade 5 Post CS

Under the Grand Chapiteau Next to ArenA, 621 1288

Hortus Botanicus Plantage Middenlaan 2A, 625 9021

V2_ Eendrachtsstraat 10, Rotterdam, 010 206 7272

Hotel Arena ’s-Gravesandestraat 51, 850 2400

Van Gogh Museum Paulus Potterstraat 7, 570 5200

Huis Marseille Keizersgracht 401, 531 8989

Verzetsmuseum Plantage Kerklaan 61, 620 2535

Imagine IC Bijlmerplein 1006-1008, 489 4866

W139 Warmoesstraat 139, 622 9434

Joods Historisch Museum Jonas Daniel Meijerplein 2-4, 531 0310

Winston Kingdom Warmoesstraat 129, 623 1380

KHL Koffiehuis Oostelijke Handelskade 44, 779 1575

Zuiderkerk Zuiderkerkhof 72, 552 7987

Zaal 100 De Wittenstraat 100, 688 0127

25-31 January 2007

Amsterdam Weekly

Man of the Year

FILM Edited by Julie Phillips. This week’s films reviewed by Shyama Daryanani (SD), John Hartnett (JH), Luuk van Huët (LvH),JR Jones (JJ),Dave Kehr (DK),Terri J Kester (TJK), Steven McCarron (SM), Marie-Claire Melzer (MM), Mike Peek (MP), Julie Phillips (JP), Kim Renfrew (KR), Jonathan Rosenbaum (JR) and Bregtje Schudel (BS). All films are screened in English with Dutch subtitles unless otherwise noted.

Amsterdam Weekly recommends.

New this week Blood Diamond Just like the previous effort of director Edward Zwick, The Last Samurai, this film is a hackneyed action flick bearing a preachy message. It may look splendiferous on the big screen, and the intentions are noble, but the underlying tone is condescending and exclusively occidental, with Djimoun Hounsou cast in a thankless role as a ‘noble savage’ and Jennifer Connelly as a goody-two-shoes American reporter. The only redeeming factor is Leonardo DiCaprio, who shines as a morally conflicted Rhodesian mercenary; sadly, his Bogart-worthy role doesn’t rescue this insipid flick, despite all the bling bling of the title. (LvH) 143 min. Pathé ArenA, Pathé City, Pathé De Munt, Pathé Tuschinski

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Little Children

Flandres Shy Démester lives a dull life on a farm. His only pleasure is occasional sex with free-spirited Barbe.

Disaster strikes when he and a few of his friends are called up to serve in a (nameless) war. They commit and undergo unspeakable crimes, leading to subtle but profound changes in Démester’s personality.

French director Bruno Dumont’s films are hit or miss.

His last, Twentynine Palms, was a definite miss, but Flandres, which won the Jury Prize at Cannes, is a hit.

Its slow pacing and strong visuals allow us to get inside Démester’s head, even though he hardly speaks. However complex Dumont’s films may seem, his message is always simple: everyone, everywhere, wants to be loved. In Flandres, it takes the experience of evil to help the main character acknowledge this need. In French with Dutch subtitles. (MP) Rialto

Little Children Five years after his superb debut

feature, In the Bedroom, writer-director Todd Field returns with another story set in a close-knit community whose quietness makes the characters’ unhappiness seem like thunder. Kate Winslet and Patrick Wilson, both disenchanted with their spouses, meet in a public park with their toddlers, and a series of carefully arranged playdates allows them to nurse their unspoken infatuation until it finally engulfs them. Meanwhile, a bitter ex-cop lets off steam by harassing a paroled paedophile who’s come home to live with his mother.

As in Field’s first film, the characters are drawn with such compassion their follies become our own and their desires seem as vast as the night sky. (JJ) 130 min. Cinecenter, The Movies, Pathé Tuschinski Man of the Year This story about a TV comedian (Robin

Williams) who’s elected president due to a faulty new computerised voting machine was written and directed

by Barry Levinson, but it’s no Wag the Dog and not even a satire, political or otherwise. It’s not exactly a love story either, although the president-elect falls for the woman (Laura Linney) who’s discovered the mechanical error. Nor is it a thriller, despite some slam-bang skulduggery involving a corporate villain (Jeff Goldblum), or a buddy film, despite the warmth between the comic and his manager (Christopher Walken). Mainly it’s a shambles, though for once Williams gets to do what he’s best at (his stand-up shtick), and the absurd carelessly assembled story keeps moving. (JR) 115 min.

Pathé ArenA, Pathé De Munt Salaam E Ishq Romance starring Salman Khan and Priyanka Chopra. In Hindi with Dutch subtitles. Pathé ArenA

Still playing 4 Elements Documentarist Jiska Rickels portrays

the four elements by linking each one to man’s efforts to use—or fight—them. Each element has its own landscape, atmosphere, language and protagonists, hard workers making a living in the face of adversity. Earth is represented by a coal mine, water by crab fishermen in the Bering Strait, fire by firefighters in Siberia and air by a crew of astronauts in training. Narration and dialogue are in Russian, English, German and Kazakh, with sparing use of subtitles; but in this beautiful, thought- provoking film, the challenge to the audience is amply repaid.

(TJK) 100 min. Het Ketelhuis, Rialto

Five-Word Movie Review

CAMEL’S LAST WEEK! ABOUT TIME The Story of the Weeping Camel, Rialto

Babel In a North African desert, two bored boys herding goats decide to try out their gun. The shot causes a chain reaction that changes the lives of an American couple (Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett), a rebellious, deaf teenage girl in Japan and a Mexican au pair caring for two American children. According to director Alejandro González Iñárritu, this is the third film in a trilogy that began with 21 Grams and Amores Perros. Itís all about relationships, love in the midst of adversity and communication. In many languages with Dutch subtitles. 142 min. Cinecenter, Pathé ArenA, Pathé De Munt Bobby Old-fashioned in both its liberal humanism and its commitment to classic Hollywood storytelling, Emilio Estevez’s fictional account of the 1968 shooting of Robert Kennedy is also a fine example of old-fashioned studio craft. Deftly juggling over a dozen characters, ranging from hotel personnel and guests to

Special screenings Adaptation Charlie Kaufman and Spike Jonze, the writer and the director of Being John Malkovich, teamed up again on this 2002 comedy. Kaufman, assigned to adapt a non-fiction book he admired but couldn’t figure out how to crack, Susan Orlean’s The Orchid Thief, decided to write about his dilemma, alternating bits of the book with a comic saga about writer’s block. Meryl Streep plays Orlean, and Chris Cooper does an elaborate character turn as her subject, an eccentric flower poacher in the Florida Everglades. This film feels like a Ferris wheel—it’s enjoyable but goes nowhere. With Tilda Swinton and Maggie Gyllenhaal. (JR) 114 min. De Balie

Barbara Sukowa The eponymous actress starred

in some of the coolest—and chilliest—films of the 1980s: Margarethe von Trotta’s Die bleierne Zeit (AKA Marianne and Juliane) and Rosa Luxemburg, Fassbinder’s Lola and Lars von Trier’s Europa. You couldn’t take your eyes off her, yet her passion was all political; in Von Trotta’s films especially, she seemed like a model for a new, harder-edged woman, one we weren’t sure we wanted to be but loved having in the female repertoire. Now the Filmmuseum is giving Sukowa a mini-retrospective, including her 2003 reunion with Von Trotta in Die andere Frau. (JP) Caché This brilliant if unpleasant puzzle-without-asolution about surveillance and denial finds director Michael Haneke near the top of his game, though it’s not a game everyone will want to play. The brittle host of a TV book-chat show (Daniel Auteuil) and his unhappy wife (Juliette Binoche) start receiving strange videos that track their comings and goings outside their Paris home. Once the husband traces the videos to an Algerian he abused when both were kids, things only get more tense, troubled and unresolved. Haneke is so punitive towards the couple and his audience that viewers may find themselves rebelling against— or even denying—the husband’s rage. In French with Dutch subtitles. (JR) 117 min. Filmmuseum Central do Brasil In this 1998 film by Walter Salles, an embittered middle-aged woman who works in the central railway station of Rio de Janeiro, writing letters for the illiterate poor, gets a new lease on life when she meets a nine-year-old boy whose mother has been run over by a bus. In

Portuguese with Dutch subtitles. 108 min. Rialto The Deer Hunter Oscar-laden 1978 weepie about macho buddies from a small industrial town (Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken, John Savage and John Cazale) picking up the pieces after America’s other ill-fated military intervention. With Meryl Streep; presented by playwright Maria Goos. 182 min. Rialto Dust Devil A serial killer haunts the Namibian desert in Richard Stanle’s 1992 film. 108 min. Melkweg Cinema Fargo A slimy car dealer (William H Macy) sunk in debt hires two thugs (Steve Buscemi and Peter Stormare) to kidnap his wife so they can split the ransom from her wealthy father. The scheme leads to a good many pointless deaths that we aren’t expected to care too deeply about, despite the efforts of Frances McDormand as the pregnant chief of police. (JR) 97 min. Het Ketelhuis Gosford Park This 2001 comedy drama, set in 1932 in an English country house, is probably Robert Altman’s most accomplished film since the ’70s. Among its virtues are a fine English cast, a good script that incorporates certain aspects of Agatha Christie-style whodunnit, and the interesting ground rule that no guest be shown unless a servant is present in the same scene. There are more characters of interest here than in Nashville, and an almost constantly moving camera tends to objectify the relationships among them. With Eileen Atkins, Bob Balaban (a Hollywood producer), Alan Bates (a butler), Helen Mirren, Clive Owen, Derek Jacobi and Stephen Fry doing a M Hulot impersonation. (JR) 137 min. Kriterion The Great Ecstasy of Robert Carmichael Thomas Clay’s 2005 directorial debut, compared to A Clockwork Orange, centres on the frustration of young men in a depressing English seaside town. The title character, a talented cellist, gets caught up in a world of violence and what psychiatrists call ‘poor impulse control’. 96 min. Melkweg Cinema Naqoyqatsi Godfrey Reggio’s trilogy of experimental travelogues, which began in 1983 with Koyaanisqatsi and continued in 1988 with Powaqqatsi, concluded in 2002 with this dizzying yet thematically inert jour-

ney through the dystopian cyberscenery of the 21st century. Multinational corporate logos, internet icons, computer code and religious symbols hurtle by, accompanied by a dour, throbbing score by Philip Glass. 89 min. Melkweg Cinema O Brother, Where Art Thou? After making their two best features to date, the Coen Brothers came up with their worst, a piece of pop nihilism about three convicts (George Clooney, Tim Blake Nelson and John Turturro) on the run. Fargo dealt with their home state (Minnesota) and the present and The Big Lebowski with LA at the time of the Gulf War. But when it comes to Mississippi and the Depression, the Coens are so contemptuous that they can’t even come up with characters. A movie’s in trouble when its best sequence is a whimsical musical number featuring the Ku Klux Klan—which the Coens seem to regard as yet another antique. (JR) 106 min. Het Ketelhuis Prime David (Bryan Greenberg) is a 23-year-old Jewish painter and Rafi (Uma Thurman) a 37-yearold WASP divorcée, so when these New Yorkers become a couple, everyone’s a bit surprised. But no one’s more confused than Rafi’s therapist (Meryl Streep), who turns out to be David’s mother and whose progressive ideas don’t extend to her son.

(JR) 105 min. Pathé Tuschinski The Quick and the Dead Sam Raimi tries to do a Sergio Leone, and though this 1995 feature is highly enjoyable in spots, it doesn’t come across as very convincing, perhaps because nothing can turn Sharon Stone into Charles Bronson. With Russell Crowe and Leonardo DiCaprio (JR) 105 min. Cavia The Servant In this 1963 film, the first of many collaborations between director Joseph Losey and screenwriter Harold Pinter, Dirk Bogarde is the sinister manservant who slowly corrupts his effete employer, James Fox. The film is very studied and smooth, even though it deals in sexual hysteria. (DK) 113 min. Filmmuseum This Night I Will Possess Your Corpse More surrealism at the Nieuwe Anita, this time a 1967 film from Brazilian cineast José Mojica Marins, AKA ‘Coffin Joe’. Opening film is Le Vampire (Jean Painlevé, 1939). With English subtitles. De Nieuwe Anita

Amsterdam Weekly

20 Democratic Party volunteers, Estevez offers a sharp cross section of the issues and attitudes surrounding Kennedy’s presidential campaign. Without privileging any member of the talented cast, he gives many of them chances to shine, especially Sharon Stone, Freddy Rodriguez (from Six Feet Under), Laurence Fishburne and Martin Sheen. The film’s premise that RFK was America’s last chance to save itself is a bit hard to buy, but the passion and thoughtfulness with which Estevez builds on it are stirring nonetheless.

(JR) 119 min. Cinecenter, The Movies, Pathé Tuschinski Candy Heath Ledger and Abbie Cornish are junkies in love, travelling a dramatic arc as old as Days of Wine and Roses (1962): the high that once united them ultimately divides them. Unfortunately, too many elements of this Australian feature have been recycled from other addiction stories (there’s even a dead baby, courtesy of Trainspotting), and the couple’s descent into crime, prostitution and scribbling doggerel on walls isn’t specific enough to compensate for all the corny underwater sequences of them swimming together like porpoises.

Ledger steals the movie as the loving but feckless husband, who’s just smart enough to realise his wife deserves better. (JJ) 107 min. Het Ketelhuis Eve Giden Yol 1914 An embittered soldier named Mahmut (Erdal Besikçioglu) returns from the Turkish front during World War I, meeting Lawrence of Arabia along the way. In Turkish with Dutch subtitles. 98 min. Pathé ArenA Guru Guru Kant Desai (Bollywood superstar Abishek Bachchan ) has big dreams. His father says dreams never come true. But Guru is not discouraged. In 1958, at a time when trade was conducted only by the rich and privileged, he leaves his village and goes to Bombay with just 15,000 rupees to start a business. Celebrated Indian director Mani Ratnam gives us the story of a young man who refuses to take no for an answer, opens his own company in Bombay and is determined to take it to the top. This star vehicle also features the celebrated Aishwarya Rai as Guru’s wife, Sujatha, and no Ratnam movie would complete without music by AR Rahman. In Hindi with Dutch subtitles. (SD) Pathé ArenA

The

Illusionist In 1900s Vienna, the magician Eisenheim (Edward Norton) appears capable of the greatest feats, from slowing the movement of an object in mid-air to making an orange tree grow instanta-

FILM TIMES Thursday 25 January until Wednesday 31 January. Times are provided by cinemas and are subject to last-minute changes. Film times also at www.amsterdamweekly.nl.

De Balie Kleine-Gartmanplantsoen 10, 553 5151 Adaptation Fri, Sat 20.30.

Cavia Van Hallstraat 52-I, 681 1419 The Quick and the Dead Thur 20.30 ShortCircuit:Short Cuts Fri 20.30.

Cinecenter Lijnbaansgracht 236, 623 6615 Babel daily 16.00, 21.45, Sun also 13.15 Bobby daily 19.00, 22.00 Little Children daily 16.15, 19.00, 21.45, Sun also 11.15 The Queen daily 16.15, 19.15, Sun also 11.00, 13.45 La Tourneuse de pages daily 16.30, 19.30, 21.45, Sun also 11.15, 14.00.

Cinema Amstelveen Plein 1960 2, Amstelveen, 547 5175 Charlotte's Web (NL) Sat, Wed 15.30, Sun 14.00 The Departed Thur-Sat 20.30, Sun 16.00 Plop in de stad Sat, Wed 13.30, Sun 12.00 Requiem Tues, Wed 20.30 Thank You for Smoking Thur 15.00.

Filmhuis Griffioen Uilenstede 106, Amstelveen, 444 5100 Goed Fout Fri 19.00 Zwartboek Thur, Tues 19.30, Fri 20.00.

Filmmuseum Vondelpark 3, 589 1400 De Avonturen van het Molletje Sun, Wed 13.45 Barbara Sukowa Fri-Wed Caché Fri, Sat, Wed 17.15 Kuifje en de Zonnetempel Sun, Wed 14.00 Our Daily Bread daily 17.30, 19.30, 21.30, Sun also 15.30 The Servant Thur, Sat, Mon, Tues 22.05, Fri, Sun, Wed 21.45 Seven Invisible Men Thur, Mon, Tues 17.15.

Het Ketelhuis Haarlemmerweg 8-10, 684 0090 4 Elements Thur-Sat, Mon-Wed 17.15, Sat, Sun, Wed also 12.45 De Avonturen van het MolletjeSat, Sun, Wed 14.30, Sat, Wed also 16.00 Blood Simple Fri 21.00 Candy daily 21.30 China Blue Thur, Fri, Sat 19.30, Sun 11.00 Fargo Thur 21.00

neously from a newly planted seed. His wizardry confounds both Crown Prince Leopold (Rufus Sewell) and Inspector Uhl (Paul Giamatti), who, despite growing admiration, is ordered to shut him down. Trapped in a corner, Eisenheim hires a group of Chinese assistants and begins to dabble in the spirit world. When an apparition of the late Duchess Sophie van Teschen (Jessica Biel), his childhood love as well as the Prince’s betrothed, manifests itself onstage, the problems begin to get out of hand. Suddenly, both the monarchy and the magician are in danger. A romantic love story and intriguing political thriller, directed by Neil Burger, with score by Philip Glass. (JH) 110 min.

The Movies, Pathé ArenA, Pathé Tuschinski Leonard Cohen: I’m Your Man The trick of a true ladies’ man is that he knows how to act out the part of a sad and lonely one. No woman with a heart can resist that. Leonard Cohen knows the trick: he has written numerous sad songs and slept with numerous beautiful women. Just admit it, a line like ‘I said that I was curious, I never said that I was brave’(from‘So Long, Marianne’) is a very romantic way of saying: ‘Sorry babe, I found someone more interesting than you.’ And now, in his seventies, the Canadian bard has had a beautiful blonde, Lian Lunson, shoot a documentary about him. The film contains footage of a recent concert in Sydney, as well as old material and interviews, both with Cohen himself and artists such as Nick Cave, Beth Orton and Rufus and Martha Wainwright, who all talk about his influence on their music.

(MM) 105 min. Het Ketelhuis Lights in the Dusk Aki Kaurismaki’s trilogy about Finnish despair (Drifting Clouds, The Man Without a Past) closes with this story of the lonely night watchman Koistinen (Janne Hyytäinen), who gets caught up with a femme fatale. In Finnish with Dutch Subtitles 78 min. The Movies

Olivier etc. Director Sander Burger’s feature film debut concerns a young man with a heart condition that could kill him at any moment. As a result, he lives life to the fullest, never having to think about the future or make long-term commitments. But when his condition is cured, he suddenly has to take responsibility.

Olivier, who in his illness always appeared so strong, now—in health—behaves like a victim. A marvellous performance by Dragan Bakema gives depth to this heartfelt story. In Dutch. (BS) 92 min. Het Ketelhuis

Kruistocht in Spijkerbroek (NL)Thur-Sat, Mon-Wed 17.00, Sat, Sun 12.00 Kruistocht in Spijkerbroek/Crusade in Jeans Sat, Sun, Wed 14.30 Leonard Cohen:I'm Your Man Thur-Sat, Mon-Wed 17.15 O Brother,Where Art Thou? Sat 21.00 Ober daily 19.30 Olivier etc. daily 21.45, Sun-Wed also 20.00 Schoffies Sun, Wed 14.30 La Tourneuse de pages daily 19.30 Zwartboek daily 21.15.

Kriterion Roetersstraat 170, 623 1708 An Inconvenient Truth daily 17.15, Sun also 13.15 Buddha's Lost Children Sat, Sun 15.15 Fashion Night Sat 21.00 Gosford Park Mon 22.15 Little Miss Sunshine Thur-Tues 19.30, Fri, Sat 23.45 Ober Sat, Sun 14.15 Perfume:The Story of a Murderer daily 16.45, 19.30 The Science of Sleep Thur, Fri, Sun, Mon, Wed 22.15, Fri, Sat 0.15, Sun also 12.45 Sneak Preview Tues 22.00.

Melkweg Cinema Lijnbaansgracht 234A, 624 1777 Dust Devil Mon 20.00 The Great Ecstasy of Robert Carmichael Sat 20.00 Naqoyqatsi Thur, Fri, Wed 20.00.

The Movies Haarlemmerdijk 159-165, 638 6016 Bobby daily 16.45, 19.30 The Illusionist daily 17.00, 19.45, 22.00, Fri, Sat 0.00, Sun also 12.45 Lights in the Dusk daily 17.30, Fri, Sat also 0.15 Little Children daily 19.30 Perfume:The Story of a Murderer daily 19.00, 21.45, Sat, Sun, Wed also 14.00.

De Nieuwe Anita Frederik Hendrikstraat 111, 06 4150 3512, This Night I Will Possess Your Corpse Mon 20.30.

OT301 Overtoom 301, 779 4913 Rize Tues 20.30 Vivre Sa Vie/Notre Musique Sun 20.30.

Pathé ArenA ArenA Boulevard 600, 0900 1458 Apocalypto daily 12.15, 15.25, 18.25, 21.25 Babel daily 20.10 Blood Diamond daily 12.05, 15.10, 18.15, 21.20 Casino Royale daily 15.00, 18.00, Thur-Mon, Wed also 21.05, Thur, Fri, Mon-Wed also 11.55 Charlotte's Web (NL) Sat, Sun, Wed 12.00, 14.05, Sat, Sun also 10.00 Déja Vu:D-4 daily 18.50, 21.40, Thur, Mon, Tues also 13.00, 15.50 The Departed daily 21.15, Thur, Fri, Mon, Tues also 12.20, 15.40 Eve Giden Yol 1914 daily 18.55 Flushed Away (NL) Sat, Sun, Wed 13.00, 15.00, Sat, Sun also 11.00 Guru daily 18.40, Sun also 14.30 Happy Feet (IMAX) daily 17.40, Thur, Fri, Mon, Tues also 12.45, 15.15 Happy Feet (NL) Fri-Sun, Wed 15.50, Fri, Sat, Sun also 13.20, Sat, Sun also 10.55, Wed also 13.15 Happy Feet (NL) (IMAX)Sat, Sun, Wed 12.45, 15.15, Sat, Sun also 10.20

Our Daily Bread This may remind you of We Feed the World, the documentary by Erwin Wagenhofer that was released in the Netherlands last November. Like that film, it’s a behind-the-scenes look at how meat and produce make the transition from soil to supermarket. But Our Daily Bread is far more experimental, abstaining from dialogue and even music. Alternating shots from the work floor of a meat-packing plant with the same people silently eating their lunches, Austrian director Nikolaus Geyrhalter creates a mood of inevitability. He is not interested in opinions or politics, only in showing the bizarre, almost science-fictional way our food is produced in the 21st century. (MP) 92 min. Filmmuseum

Paris, je t’aime

25-31 January 2007 tabloid age, celebrities are dangerously usurping the monarch’s hold on the public imagination. (JJ) 97 min.

Cinecenter, Pathé Tuschinski Requiem Michaela grows up in a deeply religious family in southern Germany. When she leaves home for university and discovers a more secular world, she begins to question her faith. At the same time, her epileptic seizures grow worse. She consults a priest who confirms her worst fears: she is possessed by the devil. Her friends urge her to seek psychiatric help, but in the end can only watch as Michaela’s devout religious convictions lead to her doom. Based on a true story, Requiem is directed by Hans-Christian Schmid with great sensitivity for the claims of both Michaela’s worlds. In German with Dutch subtitles 93 min. Cinema Amstelveen Seven Invisible Men A group of Russian dropouts take a long, alcohol-sodden and largely silent road trip across the Crimean steppes, stunningly filmed by Lithuanian director Sharunas Bartas in full Sergio Leone mode. With Dutch subtitles. Filmmuseum

Paris, je t’aime Countless films have been devoted to this most romantic of cities, but this one is set apart by its portmanteau premise: 18 directors were asked to make a five- to six-minute movie that takes place in Paris and deals with love. The results can be funny, like the Coen Brothers’ ‘Tuileries’, or beautiful, like ‘Tour Eiffel’ from Sylvain Chomet. There are surprises (Wes Craven’s tender ‘Pére-Lachaise’), disappointments (Alfonso Cuarón’s ‘Parc Monceau’), and original takes on romance (Alexander Payne’s celebration of self-love in ‘14th Arrondissement’). In all its visual and topical scope, it’s hard not to love Paris je t’aime. In French and English with Dutch subtitles. (MP) 120 min. Pathé Tuschinski The Queen Helen Mirren’s flinty performance as Elizabeth II is getting all the attention, but equally impressive is Peter Morgan’s insightful script for this UK drama, which quietly teases out the social, political, and historical implications of the 1997 death of Diana, Princess of Wales. Shortly after the shocking news reaches Britain, Prime Minister Tony Blair (Michael Sheen) scores a PR coup by memorialising Diana as the ‘people’s princess’, while the royal family’s obstinate silence angers their grieving subjects. But Blair is more sympathetic to Elizabeth than many of his staffers, and he instinctively understands what she cannot: that in the

A Soap This Danish film by director Pernille Fischer Christensen is a new addition to the slowly evolving transgender canon, falling somewhere between the grit of Boys Don’t Cry and the gloss of Transamerica. A bored beautician and a pre-op transsexual become neighbours and reluctant friends, then develop an unnameable attraction for each other. Filmed in muted colour with an unflinching, Jurgen Teller-style eye for grubby detail, it looks gorgeous, but somehow the effect is all too depressing—even though there’s a happy ending. The film’s division into soap-style episodes, complete with recaps and American voice-over, just feels like an afterthought, designed to impose dramatic urgency on an otherwise ambling narrative. In Danish with Dutch subtitles. (KR) 104 min. De Uitkijk

The Holiday daily 14.45, 17.50, 20.45 The Illusionist daily 16.10, 19.10 Kruistocht in Spijkerbroek (NL) Sat, Sun, Wed 12.50, 15.40, Sat, Sun also 10.10 Ladies in Lavender Tues 13.30 Lonely Hearts daily 21.45, Thur, Fri, Mon also 13.45 Man of the Year daily 13.25, 16.00, 19.00, 21.35, Sat, Sun also 10.50 Maskeli Besler daily 18.30, 21.10, Thur-Tues also 13.15, 15.55, Sat, Sun also 10.45 Nacho Libre daily 21.55, Thur-Sat, Mon-Wed also 16.20, Thur-Sat, Mon, Tues also 14.00, Thur, Fri, Mon, Tues also 11.50, Wed also 12.20 Plop in de stad Sat, Sun 10.35, 12.20, Wed 14.40 Rocky Balboa daily 14.15, 16.45, 19.20, 21.50, Thur, Fri, Mon-Wed also 11.55, Sat, Sun also 11.20 Salaam E Ishq daily 12.35, 16.30, 20.30 Saw III daily 17.00, 22.00, Thur, Sat-Wed also 19.30, Thur, Fri, Mon, Tues also 12.00, 14.30, Wed also 13.40, 15.55 Sneak Preview Tues 21.00 íN Beetje Verliefd daily 12.30, Fri also 19.30, Sat, Sun also 10.25.

Kruistocht in Spijkerbroek/Crusade in Jeans Sat 10.35, 13.25, Sun, Wed 12.20, 15.10 Lonely Hearts Thur, Fri, Sun-Wed 21.45, Thur, Fri, Sun-Tues also 14.10, 16.40, 19.10, Sat 15.20, 17.55, 20.30, 23.05, Sun also 11.35 Man of the Year daily 21.30, Thur, Fri, Sun-Wed also 13.00, 16.00, 18.45, Sat also 10.50, 13.30, 16.10, 18.50 Nacho Libre Thur, Fri, Sun-Wed 19.35, Thur, Fri, Mon, Tues also 12.20, 14.40, 17.05, Sat 18.35, 20.55 Perfume:The Story of a Murderer Thur, Fri, Sun-Wed 20.00, Sat 17.10, 22.40, Sun 16.45 Plop in de stad Sat, Wed 13.30, Sat also 11.40 Rocky Balboa Thur, Fri, Sun-Wed 13.35, 16.15, 18.55, 21.35, Sat 10.45, 13.15, 15.45, 18.15, 20.45, 23.15, Sun also 11.05 Saw III Thur, Fri, Sun-Wed 21.55, Sat 23.15, Wed also 13.15, 15.45 Smokin' Aces Sat 23.10 íN Beetje Verliefd Thur, Fri, Mon-Wed 15.25, 17.30, Thur, Fri, Mon, Tues also 13.15, Sat 12.40, 14.55, 20.25, Sun 12.15, 14.30.

Pathé City Kleine-Gartmanplantsoen 15-19, 623 4570 Apocalypto daily 20.00, Thur, Fri, Mon, Tues also 16.00 Blood Diamond daily 14.30, 17.30, 20.45 Casino Royale Thur-Mon, Wed 16.30, 20.30, Tues 14.45, 18.15 Charlotte's Web (NL) Sat, Sun, Wed 15.45, Sat, Sun also 13.15 Flushed Away (NL) Sat, Sun 14.00, Wed 14.20 Happy Feet (NL) Sat, Sun, Wed 16.00, Sat, Sun also 13.30 The Holiday daily 18.00, 21.00, Thur, Fri, Mon, Tues also 15.00 Rocky Balboa daily 15.30, 19.00, 21.30, Sat, Sun also 13.00 Sneak Preview 21.45.

Pathé De Munt Vijzelstraat 15, 0900 1458 Apocalypto Thur, Fri, Sun-Wed 18.15, 21.25, Thur, Fri, Sun-Tues also 15.05, Thur, Fri, Mon, Tues also 12.05, Sat 16.50, 19.55, 23.00 Arthur and the Minimoys Wed 14.15, 16.45, 19.15 Babel Thur, Fri, Sun-Wed 18.00, 21.10, Thur, Fri, Mon, Tues also 14.45, Sat 16.50, 20.00 Blood Diamond Thur, Fri, Sun-Wed 14.30, 17.45, 21.00, Sat 13.05, 16.15, 19.30, 22.45, Sun also 11.15 Borat Thur-Tues 16.50, Thur, Fri, Sun-Wed also 19.50, 22.05, Thur, Fri, Mon, Tues also 12.10, 14.20, Sat 18.55, 21.05, 23.20, Wed also 17.05 Casino Royale Thur, Fri, Sun-Wed 14.00, 17.15, 20.30, Sat 12.45, 15.55, 19.05, 22.15, Sun also 10.45 Charlotte's Web (NL) Sat 10.10, 12.25, 14.40, Sun 10.20, 12.40 Déja Vu:D-4 daily 12.45, 15.35, 18.25, Thur, Fri, Sun-Wed also 21.15, Sat also 22.30 The Departed Thur, Fri, Sun-Wed 20.15, Sat 18.40, 22.00, Sun also 16.35 Eragon daily 15.45, 18.10, Sat, Sun also 10.35 Flushed Away Sat, Sun 11.45, Wed 12.05 Happy Feet Thur, Fri, Mon-Wed 12.30, 15.00, 17.40, Sat 10.55, 13.30, 16.05, Sun 11.20, 14.00 Happy Feet (NL) Sat 10.45, 13.20, 16.00, Sun, Wed 17.00, Sun also 11.50, Wed also 14.25 The Holiday Thur, Fri, Sun-Wed 13.45, 17.25, 20.45, Sat 12.15, 15.15, 18.15, 21.15, Sun also 10.30 Kruistocht in Spijkerbroek (NL) Sat, Sun 14.00, Wed 14.15

Zwartboek In the closing days of World War II, a Jewish cabaret artiste (Carice van Houten) is betrayed to the Nazis, escapes and joins a resistance group.

When she is assigned to seduce a German officer (Sebastian Koch) she falls in love with him, one of the many plot twists (some more, some less credible) in Paul Verhoeven's complex, violent, gripping and deeply cynical adventure story. With Halina Reijn as a goodtime girl, Thom Hoffman as a resistance leader and Michiel Huisman as a red herring. In Dutch. (JP) 139 min. Griffioen, Het Ketelhuis, De Uitkijk

Pathé Tuschinski Reguliersbreestraat 34, 0900 1458 Apocalypto Thur-Tues 21.00 Blood Diamond Thur, Sun-Wed 13.00, 16.30, Thur, Sun, Mon, Tues also 20.15, Fri, Sat 12.00, 15.15, 18.30, 21.45, Wed also 21.00 Bobbydaily 12.30, 21.30, Thur also 16.00, 18.45, Fri-Wed also 15.30, 18.30 Casino Royale daily 21.15 Charlotte's Web (NL) Sun, Wed 12.45 The Holiday Thur-Mon, Wed 18.15, Thur, Fri, Mon also 12.00 The Illusionist daily 16.15, 19.00, 21.45, Fri-Mon, Wed also 13.15 Little Children daily 15.15, Thur-Sat, Mon, Tues also 12.15, Thur-Sat also 18.15, 21.20, Sun-Wed also 18.45 Little Miss Sunshine Sun-Wed 22.00 Paris,je t’aime daily 18.30, Thur-Mon also 12.45, 15.30, Tues also 16.00 Perfume:The Story of a Murderer Thur, Fri, Wed 12.15, Sat-Tues 12.00 Prime Thur, Tues 13.30 Pursuit of Happyness Wed 20.45 The Queen daily 15.45, 18.30 Saw III Wed 12.45, 15.30.

Rialto Ceintuurbaan 338, 676 8700 4 Elements daily 18.15, 20.00, 22.00, Sat, Sun, Wed also 15.45, Sat, Sun also 13.45 The Cave of the Yellow Dog Sun 14.00 Central do Brasil Sun 11.00 The Deer Hunter Sat 16.00 Family Law daily 21.45, Thur, Fri, Sun-Wed also 19.30 The Fish Fall in Love daily 19.15, 21.15, Fri-Sun, Wed also 15.30, Fri also 23.10, Sat also 13.30 Flandres Sat 23.10, Sun 16.00 Good Night,and Good Luck Fri 16.00 Into Great Silence Fri, Sun, Wed 16.15, Sat 13.00 The Story of the Weeping Camel Sun 12.00.

De Uitkijk Prinsengracht 452, 623 7460 After the Wedding Mon-Wed 21.00 Forever Sun 14.00, Mon-Wed 19.00 Perfume:The Story of a Murderer Thur-Sun 18.45 Soap,A Thur-Sun 21.30 Zwartboek daily 16.00.

25-31 January 2007

Amsterdam Weekly

Absorbing the Greek Mitsos 2e Hugo de Grootstraat 25, 684 2344 Open Tues-Sat 12.00-22.00, Sun 14.00-22.00 Cash Phyllo-sophical musings: step through the doorway into Greece—a portal in time and space.

Gaze lovingly at the splendid contents of Mitsos and Ineke’s glass display case. Do you remember that Greek holiday? The purple Aegean Sea, with the lacy foam churning in the wake of the ferry’s engine, en route to the islands? The timelessness of it all, and the incredible sunlight?

Remember sitting at the taverna under the shade while you lay into a salad? A big Greek salad, bursting with colour. Red, ugly, misshapen tomatoes, the ones with the sun-ripened flavour; cool green cucumber; black olives that have enriched Greece for thousands of years; purple onion slices; and the glorious feta cheese drizzled with oil, lemon, and perhaps some of the wild thyme that perfumed the island sprinkled on top?

Aromatic smells poured out of the open kitchen, where you could wander in and gaze intently into the cooking pots, like a seer at the Delphic Oracle.

What memories waft through your Glutton!

Early morning at the Plaka in Athens, spooning away that rich, thick yoghurt and honey sprinkled with walnuts or pistachio nuts. Then the phyllo pastry creations, all hot and fresh from the baker’s oven. Phyllo with thick custard and icing sugar, to accompany strong, black Greek coffee.

Standing in line for lemon-marinated, porky little souvlakis grilling away with thyme, served

THE UNDERCOVER GLUTTON Lemon-marinated porky souvlakis grilling away with thyme, served on pita bread slathered with tzatziki, topped with tomato, onion and chopped parsley. on flat pita bread slathered with tzatziki, and topped with tomato, onion and freshly chopped parsley. I managed to guzzle six of them in an eating contest with my brother at the bus station.

I won. He paid.

But there I was at Mitsos, looking to see what caught my fancy. Everything. All is cooked with love, devotion and great pride. The moussa-

21

ka is the real (comforting) deal with its rich béchamel topping. The aromatic meatballs contain onions and herbs. The courgette patties have oodles of feta cheese, which makes them a must.

The tarama salata is pink, creamy and made with potato, not bread. It’s enhanced with lots of lemon, garlic and olive oil. Wonderful spreads to help the ouzo ease its way down, to sit and glow inside your tum.

Ineke and Mitsos are warm, hospitable people, who know what the customers love to eat.

They do parties and cater for barbeques: spitroast lamb with honey, rosemary, garlic, lemon and pepper? Yum! They import Greek products, such as fine wine, feta cheeses, olives, capers, oil and that rich, very sweet honey. Zorba was dancing on my tongue by this point. My taste buds cried and laugh, as my senses decoded the ingredients in what I was eating. Salt. Sweet. Sour. A hint of bitter.

There are three small tables at Mitsos, where one can sit and eat, but it’s advisable to phone and reserve, especially around lunch. And what a lunch! Stewed lamb with mushroom and thyme. Chicken fillet with an avocado cream sauce or oven-cooked lamb shanks with tomato and rosemary. Of course, there are wonderful vegetarian dishes as well, like stuffed red peppers. The colourful Greek kitchen is as varied as that of the Levant (though you won’t find pork in the Turkish kitchen).

And now as the driving rain rattled the panes, I heartily wished I was in sunny Greece, but Mitsos is cheaper than an aeroplane ticket. In fact, prices are very reasonable here, but be aware that greed tends to blind the hungry Glutton, so he must consume the seductive food.

Yes, Circe may have transformed Odysseus’ crew into swine, but she turned the Glutton into a pig. Oink!

Amsterdam Weekly

22

WEEKLY CLASSIFIEDS Ads are free, space permitting. They will be posted both to the paper and online. Guaranteed placement is available for a small fee; see our website for details. Ads may be published in English, het Nederlands or whatever language is best for you to communicate your message. How to submit an ad: via our website at www.amsterdamweekly.nl, by fax at 020 620 1666 or post to Amsterdam Weekly, De Ruyterkade 106, 1011 AB Amsterdam. Deadline: Monday at 12.00, the week of publication.

AD OF THE WEEK GYPSY LOVERS PARTY We are 3 wannabe Gypsys looking for a true Hungarian or Romanian Gypsy band to play on our Gipsy Lovers Party in the last week of Feb. Contact Hanna on 06 4303 6778 or Sofia on 06 2166 6879. Email cinematiks@ hotmail.com.

HOUSING OFFERED 100'S OF APTS available in A’dam immediately. From €450 p.m. www.xpatrentals.com /offers.

CLASSIC DUTCH BARGE Jumping fish! A’dam is water and the living is easy! Lovingly restored, cosy ‘classic Dutch barge’. Perfect for BBQs on top and swan spotting at breakfast. Cable TV, Hi-Fi CD, tape, DVD. Internet Airport, Fixed Tel pos. (€1200 incl) Ideal for expat professional. Email Tranquil_haven@yahoo. co.uk.

ROOM FOR RENTLight and quiet. From 1 Mar. For non-smoking female only and cat tolerant! A’dam Noord, residential area 5-min ride from ferry. Rent €375 p.m. incl bills and wifi. Mail to keizma@gmail.com.

1 BDRM IN OOST Cosy, comfortable, 1-bdrm house in Oost for rent in Jan for preferably non-smoking, working/studying female. €450 incl. alosja@hotmail.com.

HOUSING WANTED APT/ROOM WANTED I’m 26 y.o.woman working as trainee in ING looking for studio, apt with 1 bdrm or one big room. Can pay up to €800. Contact 06 4840 6543/crissuca@gmail.com.

APT OR LARGE ROOM wanted from 1 Feb. Max €550. Please contact Miriam on 06 33037751.

LOOKING FOR ROOM Englishspeaking professional lady seeks room in A’dam. Best in centrum or nearby centrum.

Rent up to €350 p.m. Please

call 06 3878 7037 or email pearl24x@ yahoo. com.

STUDENTS COUPLE We are 2 Portuguese students in SAE studying audio engineering and digital film-making. Urgently looking for affordable apt near A’dam with rent around €650.

Contact Rodrigo Rodrigues on 06 2558 1889 or email psytoon@gmail.com.

ROOM NEEDED ASAP! Portuguese student, 21 y.o. looking for room in A’dam. Would like to move in around 10 or 15 Feb. Looking for cheap room, max rent €350. Contact me by email: O_duende@hotmail. com. Thanks!

STUDIO URGENT NEEDEDYoung quiet, non-smoking lady looks for a studio in A’dam. Preferably not far from the city centre. If rent not higher than €500 I will repaint the place. I am 38, living & working in A’dam for 5 years. Kindly please call me on 06 1511 0601. Agnes.

I'D LOVE A ROOM Looking for legal room, 14m2 or larger. I can pay about€275. Am Dutch graphic design student (Rietveld Academie), 22 y.o. clean, nonsmoking, easy-going. Thanks in advance! Sam de Groot: sam@colorwash.nl/06 3034 5357.

APT/ROOM WANTED Am a 24 y.o. architecture student looking for room or studio in A’dam city area from now until the end of June. Max €600 p.m. Please contact me if you have any offers! milla.nummikoski@ gmail.com.

HOUSING TO SHARE HOUSING TO SHARE in central A’dam for Feb and month to month. Shared kitchen and bathroom. Price is €650/mth plus 1 month deposit. Call Marvin at 06 2713 5005.

ROOM FOR RENTin shared apt, close to Vondelpark. Only for the

month of Feb. Price is €200 all incl. Call 06 4277 4518.

OTHER SPACES SHARED WORK SPACEsuitable for graphic designer to rent in center of A’dam (near Leidseplein). Available from now until July ‘07. Rental duration negotiable. Internet access, well-lit, high ceilings, +/-50m2. Email basmorsch@wanadoo.nl for more information.

STUDIO SPACE for rent. 42m2, A’damWestper1Feborlater.Own entrance,toilet,water.Furnished, 2officedesks,chairs,couch,cupboards.Preferablygraphicdesigner(s) or artist. Mail to atelierruimtetehuur@hotmail.com.

WORK OFFERED IT JOBS IN NLWe have over 650 IT and technical support jobs for non-Dutch speakers all over NL. www.xpatjobs.com.

EXPAT ICT'ER? We need you!

We are looking for desktop/service desk support agents to work for a global ICT company in A’dam. Great training and a competitive salary! Would you like to work within a diverse & professional environment? Send your CV now to Jcarpenter@ antal.com or call 751 6100.

ACCOUNT MANAGER Dutchspeaking account manager (inside) for major global software vendor. Must have ICT experience and HBO education. Competitive salary and excellent benefits. Kick start your sales career! Contact Jo at Antal on 751 6100, jreid@antal.com, or visit www.antal.com.

PHOTOGRAPHERSWANTEDSugar Factory looking for photographersenthusiasticaboutgoingout in our club & making high-qualitypicturestograspspiritofthenight.

Will put you on guest-list +1 & all used pix used for promotional goals will have your name on it!

Interested? Email sanne@sugarfactory.nl w/ work samples.

UNDUTCHABLES A'DAM looking for a Recruitment Consultant. We are looking for new colleague to join the Undutchables Amsterdam team. You need to be social and commercial, and speak fluent English and Dutch. Please send your CV to Amsterdam@undutchables.nl or check www.undutchables.nl.

TRANSLATION JOB Company looking for native French and Italian people who speak fluent English for a part-time translation job. If interested, write to michal@staff.onehello.nl.

WORK WANTED A'DAM STREETPHOTOGRAPHER looking for part-time job. You can see my photographs at www.amsterdamphotography.nl or www.hollandphoto.eu.

Send info to postmaster@amsterdamphotography.nl.

HOUSE CLEANINGDo you need a house cleaner in your home to clean your bath, kitchen, etc?

Then contact this experienced, hard-working and reliable young man on 06 1436 5407 and ask for Richard. For reference about my services contact Miss Stephanie: 06 5490 6130/Miss Gina: 06 4257 6756/Mr. Niels: 06 1745 6424.

HOUSE CLEANINGYoung man looking for house cleaning job: window cleaning, ironing, etc, with references. Call 06 2377 0134 or write bigabossey@hotmail.com.

FOR SALE GORGEOUS WARDROBE. I’m moving and 4-door, honeycoloured, wood veneer wardrobe won’t fit in new home.

Has a few small dents and bumps, but is a beaut piece, solid, H185cmxB210xD64cm.

Make reasonable offer but you will have to pick up soon. Doors already removed. For full description pls call 06 5052 7409.

HOUSHOLD GOODS... Need to set up studio or apt? Am leaving A’dam and have fridge, stove, combi-oven, 2x stools, desk, bed, chairs and more to sell before March. Pick up in the Jordaan. Phone Luke on 06 4344 1201.

VEHICLES NICE VESPA 50for sale. (No pic but must see.) Asking €850.

May trade for boat. Email limostu@yahoo.com.

CAR FOR RENTPeugeot 307 station wagon in excellent condition for rent until 1 July. €250 p.m. For information, mail berthuiberts@holdam.nl.

SERVICES ENGLISH MAN WITH VAN can help with removals big or small, in or outside of country. Reasonable rates, quick service.

Contact Lee on 06 2388 2184 or isabelleandlee@planet.nl.

FRED'S PET CARE Friendly dogwalker with references, available from 07.00-20.00 to take care of your pets. Also possible to keep them during the day and overnight. Reasonable rates. Call Fred 06 1649 1359.

XPAT PAGES Looking for an English speaking plumber, dentist, lawyer etc? Visit www.xpatpages.com.

BEST MOVING SERVICEIN TOWN Driver with van (10m3) or truck (40m3) available. Plus extra moving men, hoisting rope and elevator. Any combinations possible. Call Taco on 06 4486 4390, email info@vrachttaxi.com or check out www.vrachttaxi.com.

CLEANING/IRONINGNice, friendly and experienced couple looking for more house cleaning/ironing work in A’dam or A’veen for good price. References available. Call 06 4365 9790.

TRANSLATION Do you want to translate documents, articles or your own CV from English to Spanish? Contact 06 424 90 235 or octavio_gomez@yahoo. com. Inexpensive rates.

CREATIVE & PRINTING services offered: photographs, biz cards, T-shirts, logos, flyers. dizzy. design@graffiti.net. Call 06 2816 3169.

DIS IS DA SHIT!We deliver excellent quality horse manure for your plants and garden! Old, organic, rich in nutrients, not

25-31 January 2007 smelling.€10 for a large sack or buy 15 sacks for the price of 10! Phone us for a deal: 06 3846 7665. VanDan! NEED A STUNNING WEBSITE? Experienced web designer builds professional, unique sites for very reasonable prices. Online links to past projects a vailable.

Jordan: jordangcz@yahoo.com, 06 3034 1238.

SOUND/LIGHT RENTAL We at Soundandlights.nl are professional team ready to give life to any event. The professional equipment we provide guarantees excellent sound and lights for live performance shows, media events or private parties. For more details call 06 4273 6998 or order online at soundandlights.nl.

LOCALISED PUBLICITY? DutchEnglish experts offer full service consultancy for your advertising, web or print project. Complete websites, graphic design, DTP/pre-press. Copywriting, editing, translation. Tel 664 7001 or email info@adstream.tk.

ENGLISH COMMUNICATORFreelance English Communication Specialist. Writes, edits and proofreads your English language content for website, brochures, menus etc. Very competitive rates. Call Helen on 06 1350 1570.

PORTRAIT ARTIST Professional freelance oil painter available for commissions. Portraits of adults, children and families. Visit www.annagreaves.com to see examples of Anna’s work.

Contact Anna Greaves on 06 1811 5098 or anna@annagreaves.com for more information or to make appointment.

PROFESSIONALHAIR COLORIST with more than 15 years experience offer his services for good rates. Highlights, tint and semitint, creative colours. Also trained in make-up and hairstyling. Call 06 2413 7392.

HEALTH & WELLNESS FOOT REFLEXOLOGY Works through the feet on the whole body to rejuvenate and boost energy through deep relaxation.

Can shift longterm complaints.

Treat yourself or friend. Various locations in A’dam. www.peakexperience.nl. Paula Charnley: 06 1489 6168.

THINKING ABOUT THERAPY? Heighten your quality of life and

improve your relationships with the help of a native English speaking therapist. My 20 years of professional experience and understanding can help you better cope with feelings and sort through stressful thoughts.

Sagar: 06 4626 5412.

EMOTIONAL RESCUE Want to know the secret to having a happier, more joyful and fulfilling life? I am a professional & certified counselor who can help you solve & end your emotional problems. Short-term counseling can change your life & bring peace & happiness back into your life (American/English).

06 4626 5412.

HEALERLife coach, yoga teacher and reiki healer available for all types of sessions. Visit www.empowerall.eu or call 06 5210 1547.

DENTIST Are you searching for a dentist? Do not be afraid of the dentist! Please contact Avicenna Dental Practice in A’dam for your dental needs. American trained dentist, gentle and caring with more than 10 years experience in all aspects of dentistry including cosmetics. Contact 612 6093.

ENERGY READINGGet answers about your health, psychological patterns, direction in life and everything else regarding your physical and non-physical self, by an experienced intuitive. 1,5 hrs = €50. In-calls.

Rudsel: 06 2955 4552.

HEALING Source Energy Therapy, hands-on healing session.

Physical and emotional tensions are released and balanced to create a quieting of the mind, transformation of old patterns and profound sense of harmony within oneself. €60/hr.

Jeroen: 06 4842 7860.

HOME IMPROVEMENT PAINTER + HANDYMANI am available to paint inside and outside or lend a helping hand. Reasonable rates. Lots of practical and professional experience.

Good references available. Contact Dacho 06 4275 6045.

HANDYMAN Dutch, have been expat myself for 12 years. For all technical domestic, maintenance and rebuilding jobs.

Specialising in kitchens and creating storage space in hardly and non-used space in your house. Speak fluent English.

De Bock Home Improvement.

Contact 06 1064 0697.

COMPUTERS PC HOUSE DOCTORSpecialised in virus/spyware removal, H/W, S/W repair, data recovery, wireless, cable/ADSL installation and computer lessons from friendly and experienced Microsoft professional for reasonable price. Contact Mario at 06 1644 8230.

NEED HELP WITH YOUR MAC? MAC-lover helps you with basic setups, minor troubleshooting, install, networking, basic MAC lessons, setting up programs, MS Word, QuarkXpress, etc.

Help with purchasing the right MAC, call Sagar at 779 1926.

MAC TRUBBLES MAC bubbles, Mac-ek-nie-weet-nie? For excellent advice@fairbeatrate call Jay on 06 40941991 or macjordaan@tiscali.nl.

AFFORDABLE COMPUTER Consulting, upgrades, repairs, and technical expertise. MACs, PCs, laptops, desktops, networks.

References available.

Autonomous illustration. Mike: mike@autonomous.nl/06 2143 2623/Mike.

TÉCNICO INFORMÁTICOReparaciones de toda classe. Eliminación de virus, wireless, LAN, reparación de hardware, instalaciones y mantenimiento. Buen precio, llamar a Joaquim al. 06 5205 5383.

ALL ABOUT THE MACExperienced teacher in computer skills teaches Aperture for Photographers, Photoshop, Final Cut and more, at reasonable rates in your home. ribomedia@ gmail.com.

MASSAGE THAI MASSAGE does wonders for your body and soul. It’s a nice gift to yourself or someone you care about. Are you planning a (girls evening) party? Let me give you a nice back, arm, neck, head and face massage with a Thai twist. Please visit www.timeforthaimassage.com or call 06 1031 6310 for more information.

HEALING MASSAGE Relax into the new year. Offering relaxing massage using a variety of techniques, pressure points and oil.

Reiki and rebirthing also available. Please call 06 2862 4557.

SHIATSU COURSE Learn how to give a simple but efficient treatment. Introduction to the basic

Amsterdam Weekly

25-31 January 2007 principlesofshiatsu.10Wedfrom 9.30-11.45 starting 7 Feb. More infoatmonikaforster@dds.nl.tel.

020 6937808

COURSES GUITAR LESSONSGuitar lessons from a well experienced teacher (conservatory graduate). Lesson for people in all levels. Learn to play rock, pop, blues, jazz, funk, R&B, soul, hard rock, metal, folk, country and much much more.

Call Joe on 06 2458 9662.

BELLY DANCE COURSESix week course starts Thur 25 Jan at 19.00 Studio in A’dam West.

More info visit www.zerzura.info or phone 681 0072. This timeless woman’s dance increases fitness levels & creates a positive body image, regardless of age or shape.

VOICE OVERS Workshops designed to get you started in the voice industry run weekly at a professional studio in A’dam.

For more info visit www.voicetake.com.

TAI CHI LESSONSTai Yang school is starting new courses now.

Beginners welcomed. Come train body, mind and spirit. See website and sign up for free introduction lesson. www.taiyang.nl or 623 0835.

DRUM LESSONS! Study with experienced professional. Reading and rudiments to rock and roll. Beginners to working drummers. Call Jack Dempsey on 06 1707 8673. Email drum dempsey@hotmail.com.

HEALING WORKSHOPS Learn Hands-on Energy Healing, Guid-

23 son. Contact Michael on 320 2095 or ajara77@yahoo.com.

ed Visualisations, Shamanic Journeys in the ‘Source of Life’ workshop series. Heal yourself & others & reconnect with your inner being. 8-wk course Wed 13.15-16.45 starting 14 Feb at Aurora Holistic Centre. Misha: 06 466 94556 or www.soulweaving.com.

STEM IN BEWEGING Voor wie: Iedereen die nieuwsgierig is naar de mogelijkheden van stem, zang & beweging en die op zoek is naar diepgang in het werken met de stem. Contact info@steminbeweging.nl.

Aanmelden: Voor meer informatie kijk op www.steminbeweging.nl of bel 419 8389.

DRAWING AND PAINTINGworkshops by professional artist.

Various techniques, all styles.

For info call 681 3067/ joneiselin@hetnet.nl.

FITNESS FOR WOMENGentle fitness workouts in Jordaan & Baarsjes. English, Dutch, French spoken. Low impact. Small groups with personal attention.

A nice mix of warming-ups, stretching, yoga postures, core training & toning of legs, back, belly, buttocks. Also personal trainining. 770 1063. www.sylfit.com.

SIVANANDA YOGA CLASS New Sivananda Yoga classes in the Mirror Centre, with Lupe Ahimsa. Weekly classes on Wed, from 19.30 -21.00. Drop-in class: €10. 10 -class card: €90. More information: www. mirrorcentre.nl. Class limited to 15 participants. To register email jeroendewit @mirrorcentre.nl.

LOOK, DRAW SEEWould you like to rediscover your imagination, intuition, concentration, creativity? Learn drawing with joyful system & explore yourself.

Get good drawing technique, recreate your reality & fantasy and develop own style. Small groups. Tussen de Bogen.

Details: 06 2635 4814 or isalpola89@hotmail.com.

YOGA WITH REENA Experience Yoga with Indian teacher. Discover how simple yoga practices can help you to live a healthy & happy life. Learn the science of living in harmony with yourself and the world around you.

Yoga is suitable for all age groups. For more information contact 06 4390 2470/ www.

YogAmsterdam.nl.

THEATRE TRAINING Thurs 10.30-12.00 for actors, dancers, performers interested in the basics of physical theatre. Use energy efficiently, stimulate presence and challenge the creativity of the performer. Fee: 10-rate card is €50 and valid for 2 months. Place: WAT Studio in Bos en Lommer. Call 488 8449.

BALLET DANCE LESSONS Freestyle jazz dance with classical elements. Level beginners.

Develop your body to dance, strength + flexibility. Tues nights

at 19.45. http://home.tiscali .nl/balletjeannetsmit. Call 682 5478 or email jeannetsmit@ yahoo.com.

LANGUAGES SPANISH CONVERSATION Want to practice your Spanish with a native speaker? Different fun topics: food, Latin America, music, literature, etc & a glass of wine, tea or coffee. Individual lessons, €20 & group lessons (2-3), €15.

If you have any further questions contact Natalie on 06 4299 9648 or nataliad37@hotmail.com.

LEARN SPANISH! Do you want to learn or improve Spanish with a professional? Conversation, grammar, topics... All that you want with native speaker with experience. Phone 06 4384 5642. Private €20 and group €3-15 each one. Y HABLA ESPANOL! DUTCH LESSONS Improve conversation or for professional purposeorstudies,NT2,indivlessons,

€15/hr and intensive courses and online lessons/min intensive: 15 hrs = €187.50. Adults & children. home .tiscali.nl/stylusphant/indexdutch.html, excellentdutch@ hotmail.com or call 06 3612 2870.

SPANISH COURSE Learning Spanish is easy! Given by 20 years (native) exp. KIT prof. Fun topics, literature, food, life style, standard Latin American Spanish for Travellers. 2-3 persons, €16. Private €22. Flexible schedule in Oud West, Zuid.

Info: yanodav9@yahoo.co.uk or 06 1931 6130.

DUTCH LESSONSNew evening courses starting in Feb, centre of A’dam. €200-€250 for 20 hours. Visit www.mercuurtaal.nl or contact 693 4250.

APRENDA POERUGUES! Learn portuguese with experienced teacher. Private and group lessons in A’dam. Outside extra cost for transport. Costs: €11/hr private and €7/hr group. Contact online.portugues@gmail

.com. Phone: 06 11155859 LEARNING DUTCH? JOOST WEET HET! €7/hr. 2x2 hrs/wk.

Don’t go to sleep in wintertime, improve your Dutch at Joost Weet Het! Courses on all levels and real quality. Visit our website www.joostweethet.nl or call us at 420 8146.

INTENSIVE DUTCHCOURSES at Joost Weet Het! €7/hr, 4x4 hrs/wk. We have an unconventional and very clear learning method. Fun classes, emphasis on conversation and inexpensive! visit www.joostweethet.nl or call us at 420 8146. Email info@aprenderholandes.nl.

MUSICIANS SINGING LESSONS On Prinsengracht, beautiful atmosphere. Classical voice training, breathing techniques, vocalization, scales, etc. For beginners and professionals.

From classic to jazz, pop or rock, all styles of singing. Good prices + free introduction les-

PIANO RENTAL? Anybody ready to rent his/her piano for a few hours once per month?

Preferably in Haarlem. Email renate_geiling@stream.com.

ship and make happines family/married. More info mail me: jobsolution06@ yahoo.com.

ANNOUNCEMENTS HYPNOTHERAPY ? Am looking for course or teacher of hypnotherapy. If anyone knows of a course in the A’dam area or a qualified teacher please drop me a line. Thanks, Martyn. Email martyn777@tiscali .co.uk.

PERSONALS

SPACE FOR PARANORMAL ACTIVITY Young dynamic research team looking for 4 locations with paranormal activity. We use scientific methods, EVP and ITC to communicate with the ‘other side’ Interested? Webmaster@ entiteiten.net or check www. entiteiten.net! 4 cool movies and forum.

HAVE DINER WITH ME? Looking for decent, well-mannered educated female to socialise & have drink/dinner sometimes in A’dam. Am selfemployed, financially independent & am 38 y.o. Interested? Contact me at guruofamsterdam@hotmail. com.

BOOKCLUB Want to join a bookclub? We meet once a month and read variety of books, fiction and non-fiction.

Emphasis is on fun rather than serious study. If you are interested, please drop me an email: susannewintrich@hotmail.com.

BALKAN/KLEZMER BANDis looking for friends! Check out our sounds on www.myspace.com /caspianhatdance and join our friends list!

INTRO TO KABBALAH Ready for change? Do you want to become the director of your own life? Come to the free introduction lecture by the Kabbalah Centre (www.kabbalah .com). 21 Feb at 19.00, De Roos, PC Hooftstraat 183, A’dam To register email arie.politi@kabbalah.com or call free in the NL on 0800 023 5027.

VOCAL COACHINGSinger-songwriter offers vocal coaching/confidence and songwriting skills sessions. Call 06 5210 1547 or visit www.dvoradavis.com

SPERMA DONOR Hi, women.

I am a male, 34 y.o, hygienist, healthy, handsome and university degree. I can donor my sperma for people who need it. And also looking for woman for serious relation-