MON
FRI
10.15am
8.30pm
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A Dutch Master Jos Stelling, filmmaker, cinema owner, visionary. At the age of seven he was given a projector and started to show films to children in the neighbourhood, developing a profound passion for film. He spent all of his spare time filming with an 8mm camera, and after 10 years experimentation began his first feature. Released in 1974, MARIKEN VAN NIEUMEGHEN – ultimately a collaboration with 800 people – was selected for the Official Competition of the Cannes Film Festival. No film from the Netherlands has received this honour since. His subsequent features have followed a unique and often bizarre vision.
Saturday 17 September 8.15pm • Arts Picturehouse
Although popular on the festival circuit, none of his films have achieved distribution in the UK. Cambridge Film Festival presents a chance to catch up with a unique vision of cinema, and meet the man himself.
JOS STELLING IN CONVERSATION
Box office: 0871 902 5720 | JOS STELLING |
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Jos Stelling will talk about his career and fascination with art and culture, interrupted by his three short films THE WAITING ROOM, THE GAS STATION and THE GALLERY, with opportunities for the audience to ask questions about his work.
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DUSKA (CFF 15)
THE ILLUSIONIST (CFF 15)
Director: Jos Stelling. Starring: Gene Bervoets, Sylvia Hoeks, Sergey Makovetskiy. Netherlands 2007. 110 mins. Dutch and Russian with English subtitles.
Director: Jos Stelling. Starring: Freek de Jonge, Jim van der Woude, Catrine Wolthuizen, Gerard Thoolen. Netherlands 1984. 90 mins.
The submission for Best Foreign Film Oscar 2008 from the Netherlands, DUSKA is the perfect Film Festival movie. Bob is a film critic who lives opposite his favourite cinema. He is now working on a screenplay inspired by the young cashier in the cinema. While attracted to her, he expects nothing but fantasy until she has a row with her boyfriend. At the same time, Duska arrives on his doorstep – a man he met at a Russian film festival some years back – but neither speaks the other’s language. Once in Bob’s apartment, Duska shows no sign of leaving. DUSKA demonstrates all of Stelling’s fascination with language, communication and humour and with European Shooting Star, Sylvia Hoeks, lighting up the picture, it is enchanting viewing.
Opening with a beautiful sequence in a theatre, THE ILLUSIONIST establishes its genesis in Freek de Jonge’s stage show. However, Stelling quickly opens it out into the imagination of a figure who looks around the corner of the theatre dressing room. Blending fiction, reality, dream and illusion effortlessly THE ILLUSIONIST is the story of two brothers, one of whom pursues his ambitions, while the other is sent to a mental institution by their parents. Lost childhood, failed ambitions, the threat of brain surgery, an unremitting mother, a suicidal father and a rich grandfather define the course of action. A film with no dialogue but much sound and fury – and winner of the Golden Calf and Critics Prize at the 1984 Dutch Film Festival.
Print source: StellingFilms
Brings to mind a much more bizarre Tati movie.” THE WORLDWIDE CELLULOID MASSACRE
Print source: StellingFilms