Eye Filmmuseum is a film archive, museum, and cinema in

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...

that preserves and presents both Dutch and foreign films screened in the Netherlands.

Location and history

Eye Filmmuseum is located in the

Overhoeks Overhoeks is a new mixed-use neighbourhood of Amsterdam, Netherlands in the borough of Amsterdam-Noord directly across the IJ river (technically a lake) from the city's central station. It is located on the former Royal Dutch Shell Shell plc ...

neighborhood of

in the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

. Its predecessor was the Dutch Historical Film Archive, founded in 1946 by David van Staveren, Felix Halverstad, and directors of Filmtheater Kriterion Piet Meerburg and Paul Kijzer. Following the accession of the archives of the Filmtheater de Uitkijk, the archive was renamed the Netherlands Filmmuseum under the leadership of its first director, film collector Jan de Vaal. The Filmmuseum was located in Kriterion and

Stedelijk Museum The Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (; Municipal Museum Amsterdam), colloquially known as the Stedelijk, is a museum for modern art, contemporary art, and design located in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

until 1975, when de Vaal succeeded in acquiring a discrete space for the Filmmuseum in the Vondelpark Pavilion. In 2009, Nederlands Filmmuseum merged with Holland Film, the Netherlands Institute for Film Education and the

Filmbank Experimental filmmakers ask whether things could not be done differently. Underground films analyse and critique the mainstream film industry. They step back and reflect. Simultaneously, they take forward leaps to assess new options. Sometimes the ...

and plans were announced for a new home on the north bank of Amsterdam's waterfront. The Filmmuseum was renamed the Eye Film Institute Netherlands and was officially opened on April 4, 2012, by

Queen Beatrix Beatrix (Beatrix Wilhelmina Armgard, ; born 31 January 1938) is a member of the Dutch royal house who reigned as Queen of the Netherlands from 1980 until her abdication in 2013. Beatrix is the eldest daughter of Queen Juliana and her husband ...

Buildings

Eye Filmmuseum

The Eye Filmmuseum building is designed by

Delugan Meissl Associated Architects Delugan Meissl Associated Architects (DMAA) is an Austrian architecture firm based in Vienna, Austria. DMAA has designed notable buildings including the Porsche Museum, StuttgartSchembari, James (4 September 2017)Where Your Mercedes-Benz and Porsch ...

,Schuetze, Christopher F. (12 September 2013)
A New Dutch Focus on Film.
''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' whose other projects include the

Porsche Museum The Porsche Museum is an automobile museum in the Zuffenhausen district of Stuttgart, Germany on the site of carmaker Porsche. History The original Porsche museum opened in 1976 in a side-road near the Porsche factory. It was a relatively s ...

in Stuttgart. The building features two gallery exhibition spaces, one 300-seat cinema, two 127-seat cinemas, and a fourth intimate cinema of about 67 seats. One of the gallery spaces is devoted to a permanent exhibition on the technical and aesthetic histories of cinema. The exhibit includes historical equipment drawn from the Museum's collection of approximately 1,500 cinematic apparatuses, as well as an immersive presentation of about one hundred film clips from the Museum's archive, including Dutch and international films dating from the silent era and beyond. The second gallery space is dedicated to experimental cinema or

expanded cinema {{italic title ''Expanded Cinema'' by Gene Youngblood (1970), the first book to consider video as an art form, was influential in establishing the field of media arts.Manovich, Lev. 2002. "Ten Key Texts on Digital Art: 1970–2000". Leonardo. 35 (5) ...

, a commitment which dates back to the Filmmuseum's founding and the weekly screenings it organized at the

in the 1950s under the emerging aegis of cinema as a " seventh art." Past exhibitions in this space have focused on auteurs and cinematographers, as well as video artists and visual artists like

Ryoji Ikeda Ryoji Ikeda (池田亮司 ''Ikeda Ryōji'', born 1966) is a Japanese visual and sound artist who currently lives and works in Paris, France. Ikeda's music is concerned primarily with sound in a variety of "raw" states, such as sine tones and noi ...

and Anthony McCall.

Eye Collection Center

Eye opened its revamped Collection Center in 2016. The collection is made up of analog, digitized, and born-digital materials which are situated beside a sound restoration and digitization studio, a digital image restoration studio, and a grading and scanning suite. The collection includes 210,000 cans of acetate film, 57,000 film titles, 2.5 petabytes of digital data, 82,000 posters, 700,000 photographs, 27,000 books, 2,000 journals, 1,500 pre-cinema and film apparatuses, 4,500

magic lantern The magic lantern, also known by its Latin name , is an early type of image projector that used pictures—paintings, prints, or photographs—on transparent plates (usually made of glass), one or more lenses, and a light source. Because a si ...

slides, 7,000 musical scores, and 250,000 press cuttings.

EYE Film Institute Netherlands - Eye Study - Collection building - Front - 2017

The collection originally consisted of films from the Uitkijk archive, compiled by members of the Dutch Filmliga (1927-1933). After joining the

International Federation of Film archives The International Federation of Film Archives (french: Fédération internationale des archives du film, FIAF) was founded in Paris in 1938 by the Cinémathèque Française, the Reichsfilmarchiv in Berlin, the British Film Institute and the Museum ...

(FIAF) in 1947, the Filmmuseum started to actively collect and preserve Dutch film productions. Since then, a number of significant collections have been acquired, ranging from Dutch distributors ( Desmet, Centra, and UIP); filmmakers (

Joris Ivens Georg Henri Anton "Joris" Ivens (18 November 1898 – 28 June 1989) was a Dutch documentary filmmaker. Among the notable films he directed or co-directed are '' A Tale of the Wind'', '' The Spanish Earth'', ''Rain'', ''...A Valparaiso'', ''M ...

Johan van der Keuken Johan van der Keuken (; 4 April 1938 – 7 January 2001) was a Dutch documentary filmmaker, author, and photographer. In a career that spanned 42 years, Van der Keuken produced 55 documentary films, six of which won eight awards. He also wrot ...

, and

Louis van Gasteren Louis Alphonse van Gasteren (20 November 1922 – 10 May 2016) was a Dutch film director, film producer, and artist. He was born in Amsterdam. He is the son of actor Louis van Gasteren Sr. and singer Elise Menagé Challa, and the brother of actre ...

); and producers (

Matthijs van Heijningen Matthijs van Heijningen (born 17 April 1944 in Alphen aan den Rijn) is a Dutch film producer. He is one of the country's most successful producers, and became known for a series of commercial successes and for screen adaptations of literary works. ...

and

Kees Kasander Kees or KEES may refer to: * Kees (given name) * Kees (surname) * KEES, an American AM radio station licensed to Gladewater, Texas See also * Cees (disambiguation) Cees () is a Dutch masculine given name, a short form of Cornelis. Since, as in ...

) to institutions and organizations, such as the

Netherlands Film Academy The Netherlands Film Academy ( nl, Nederlandse Filmacademie) (NFA) was founded in 1958. The academy is the only recognised institute in the Netherlands that offers training to prepare for the work in the various crew disciplines. Specialisation ...

; the Netherlands Film Fund; and the Netherlands Institute for Animation Film (NIAf). The collection also includes many seminal silent film works, Hollywood classics, international arthouse productions, and independent filmmakers of international renown.

Nitrate Bunkers

Martin van Leuven standing before the Eye Filmmuseum nitrate bunker in Overveen

Eye stores 30,000 cans of flammable nitrate film in bunkers near the coast of North Holland in

Overveen Overveen is a village in North Holland in the Netherlands, in the municipality of Bloemendaal. Overveen lies on the eastern fringe of the North Sea dunes. To the east it borders the built-up areas of Haarlem. A few kilometres to the west of the ...

Castricum Castricum () is a municipality and a town in the province of North Holland in the Netherlands. Castricum is a seaside town in the province of North Holland. It draws in a fair share of tourists who mainly come to visit the beach and nearby dune ...

and

Heemskerk Heemskerk () is a municipality and a town in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland. It is located in the Kennemerland region. Local government As of March 2022, the municipal council of Heemskerk consists of 25 seats, which are divide ...

. These nitrate films date between 1896 and the mid-1950s and include a unique collection of 68mm film. Two of these bunkers were built during the Second World War to protect Dutch art museum holdings from theft and destruction; Rembrandt, Rembrandt's The Night Watch was among a few of the paintings which were stored in the Castricum bunker for part of the war.

Restorations

Recent silent film Eye restorations include the formerly lost film ''Beyond the Rocks (film), Beyond the Rocks'' (1922) starring Gloria Swanson, ''J'accuse (1919 film), J'accuse!'' (1919) by Abel Gance, ''The Seashell and the Clergyman'' (1928) by Germaine Dulac, Germain Dulac, ''Raskolnikow (film), Raskolnikov'' (1923) by Robert Wiene, ''Flower of Evil (film), Flower of Evil'' (1915) by Carmine Gallone, and ''Shoes (1916 film), Shoes'' (1916) by Lois Weber. Restorations of Dutch films include ''Wan Pipel'' (1976) by Dutch-Surinamese director Pim de la Parra, ''Zeemansvrouwen'' (1930) by Henk Kleinmann, ''Character (film), Karakter'' (1997) by Mike van Diem, ''Spetters'' (1980) by Paul Verhoeven, and ''Abel (1986 film), Abel'' (1986) by Alex van Warmerdam. Other restorations include ''Eva (1962 film), Eve'' (1962) by Joseph Losey, ''M (1931 film), M'' (1931) by Fritz Lang, and ''We Can't Go Home Again'' (1979) by Nicholas Ray.

Projects

Eye is performing a major film digitization and preservation project together with IBM and Thought Equity Motion, a provider of video platform and rights development services. The project involves scanning and storing more than 150 million discrete DPX files on Linei Tape-Open, LTO Gen5 Tape in the Linear Tape File System format.

Annual Events

* International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (November) * Eye International Conference (May)

Publications

In 2009, in collaboration with Amsterdam University Press (AUP), Eye began publishing academic books on restoration, preservation, archival and exhibition practices through their "Framing Film" series.

Collection

The Adopted Brother - Christy Cabanne, D.W. Griffith - 1913, Biograph - EYE FLM24373 - OB 685502 - 720 x 404.ogv, ''The Adopted Brother'' by Christy Cabanne and D.W. Griffith. Silent film, 1913. Running time: 10:41 Charlie in Turkey Pat Sullivan Keen Cartoon Corporation 1916 685703 FLM11263.ogv, ''Charlie in Turkey'', silent animation by Pat Sullivan (film producer), Pat Sullivan, 1916. 9:39 Bits & Pieces - BP374 - Test flight of Pescara's helicopter - 1922 - EYE FLM7760 - OB105716.ogv, Flight tests with the helicopter Pescara 2R of Raúl Pateras Pescara. Silent film 1922. 1:25. Les Vampires de la côte - Cândido de Faria - 1908 - EYE A03060 - neg0069.jpg, Poster by Cândido de Faria for the silent Pathé Frères film ''Les Vampires de la côte'', 1908 Nieuw Weekblad voor de Cinematografie - 1 - 6 oktober 1922 - EYE.tif, Nieuw Weekblad voor de Cinematografie 1, 6 oktober 1922. Dutch weekly of cinematography. Lilian Harvey - Alexander Binder - EYE FOT136677.jpg, Filmstar Lilian Harvey by Alexander Binder, 1920s Truus van Aalten - Alexander Binder - EYE FOT168482.jpg, Filmstar Truus van Aalten by Alexander Binder, 1920s Greta Garbo - Alexander Binder - EYE FOT57148.jpg, Filmstar Greta Garbo by Alexander Binder, 1920s EYE Film Institute Netherlands - Nitrate film decay - 2.jpg, Film restoration

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Eye Film Institute Netherlands 1952 establishments in the Netherlands Amsterdam-Noord Archives in the Netherlands Cinema museums Film archives in Europe Film organisations in the Netherlands Media museums in the Netherlands Museums established in 1952 Museums in Amsterdam Articles containing video clips FIAF-affiliated institutions