The Dutch Continue to Excel
Winning the Grand Jury Prize for the best pavilion at the Cannes Film Festival, the Dutch continue to excel.
With this award, the Dutch celebrate the 100th anniversary of the still-revolutionary modern art movement ‘De Stijl’ whose best known proponent was Piet Mondrian. With a special unveiling of their pavilion called “A Composition in Red Blue and Yellow : Extruding Mondrian in Space” in the presence of its designer Sabine Marcelis, she pointed out the sensation of entering into a previously flat work of art by Mondrian as one enters the pavilion, thus extending his own motto, “Always further,” which is how Mondrian termed his drive to transform his artwork. And so a propos of this, we enter a new dimension.
The Studio Sabine Marcelis was brought to the Dutch Pavilion by Holland’s National Institute of Arts which integrates all the art disciplines and joins them with national events and buildings like the Eye Institute and The Netherlands Film Fund’s Pavilion in Cannes this year. The Studio has also recently completed the first phase of the renovation scheme for Berlin’s finest department store, Kaufhaus des Westerns (KaDeWe). The new entrance utilizes light strips and mirrored surfaces which have been treated with color so as to create an illusion of exaggerated depth.
Also excelling, Holland’s children’s films surpass all over countries’ output and their children’s film festival, Cinekid (October 18–27th) taking place in Amsterdam with 35 satellite festivals across the Netherlands, it is now in its 31st year and is the largest, most renowned of all children’s film festivals. As explained by one expert of children’s films who buys 150 children’s films a year for her television channel in India, the Dutch children’s films deal with kids facing issues whereas the Scandinavian children’s films deal with kids taking actions and the French most often deal with children who are alone in the world. When I asked her about American films she laughed and said they usually deal with talking dogs or other talking animals. At Cinekid, the film winning the children’s favorite award decided by a jury of professionals wins almost US$10,000.
