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Article
06.11.2024
FR EN

Dans La récréation, c’est bien d’une passion qu’il s’agit. Croix et délices du ballon. Peu importe son objet : il n’y a pas d’objet dérisoire s’il s’agit d’une vraie passion. Comme dans toute passion, ce qui sauve est aussi ce qui perd. Le garçon a été perdu, puni, battu, et il finira par s’égarer à cause de son ballon (il a cassé une vitre de l’école), mais c’est grâce à un autre ballon (celui des enfants dont la partie de foot obstrue la rue qu’il doit traverser) qu’il réussira à franchir l’obstacle. Le ballon est sa clé du monde. C’est aussi sa croix.

Over Johan van der Keuken

Article
16.10.2024
NL

Van der Keuken doet een wereld bestaan, hij creëert een werkelijkheid. Beschrijven is dan niet het representeren van iets dat al bestaat maar eerder het realiseren van “een” werkelijkheid. Door het creëren van vormen schept hij een wereld van dingen die in onze verbeelding tot leven komt. Herman bestaat wel degelijk, als vorm. Het geluk waar Van der Keuken ons deel van maakt, is net die magische realisatie van de wereld op het scherm, waar het innerlijke plots buitenkant wordt.

George Millers Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024)

Article
30.10.2024
NL

Het virtuele gebricoleer in Furiosa gaat ten koste van de verankering in de werkelijkheid. Door de navelstreng met de wereld door te knippen, laat Miller de wisselwerking tussen formalisme en realisme, die hij met Fury Road al begon te verliezen, definitief achter zich. Het resultaat is een vlakke film waarin nog maar weinig op het spel lijkt te staan. Met hun verwijzende kracht verdwijnt immers ook de noodzakelijkheid van beelden en worden ze vrijblijvende simulacra. “There were never any car chases in Mad Max,” zei Miller over de film uit 1979. In Furiosa zijn er amper auto’s.

Faraz Fesharaki on Was hast du gestern geträumt, Parajanov? (2024)

Conversation
09.10.2024
EN

I manipulated the footage so much during editing that the boundaries between reality and fiction blurred. But even then, I don’t think it’s unreal, because what is real anyway? Even when you observe reality, you’re seeing it from a specific angle, editing it in your mind. That’s what I learned in the editing room – how different angles and edits can create entirely different versions of the same family.

Right Now, Wrong Then (Hong Sang-soo, 2015)

Op een dag een film
23.10.2024
NL EN

After an hour, the screen turned black. While the students started to stand up (relieved?), the title suddenly reappeared on the screen and the film seemed to start again. I got confused looks. Is the film looping? What I deliberately didn’t tell was that Right Now, Wrong Then consists of two parts, the second part repeating the first with some subtle and less subtle differences. Everyone got back into their chairs, except for one student, for whom, apparently, the second hour was too much. He had seen enough. While he left the classroom, I thought to myself that he hadn’t seen anything yet.

Conversation
02.10.2024
FR EN

Rastko Novaković: After six decades of filmmaking, can you say what an image is, for you?

Alain Cavalier: Being able to take my camera out of its bag, when I’m struck by a human act, and having the chance to be well placed so that a cinematographic grace inhabits the shot.

Johan van der Keuken (1938-2001) was a Dutch filmmaker and photographer. At the age of seventeen, he already made a name for himself with Wij zijn 17 (1955), a photo book of portraits of peers. A year later, he entered the Paris film school IDHEC, where he discovered a growing passion for filmmaking. As a filmmaker, he broke through with experimental documentaries such as Blind kind (1964) and the North-South trilogy (Dagboek, Het witte kasteel, en De nieuwe ijstijd, 1972-1974) in which he depicted increasing global inequality. He made more than fifty films.

Van der Keuken was also a gifted writer on cinema, an activity through which he sought to delineate his practice as a filmmaker. “For myself, writing was necessary at times, because something lived inside of me, floated before my eyes, that I wanted to grasp. With hermetic formulas or intuitive stammering, speculative ebullitions or harsh prescriptions for the world.” This collection of texts by Johan van der Keuken offers a chance to (re)discover him not only as a filmmaker but also as one of the most original writers on cinema.

Introduction to ‘Between Head and Hands’

Article
16.10.2024
NL FR EN

Van der Keuken elegantly distinguished writing and filmmaking from each other. The two activities do not impose strict prescriptions on each other; rather, they run parallel in his work. They are similar searches but with different means. Early in his career, writing was a way to anticipate his films, to explore ideas that may not yet have fully manifested themselves in his work. “I suspected film for some time to be a thing in which time and space have fused and solidified, before I could really make that thing. In the meantime, I needed words to make the connection between my head and my hands.”

NEWS
17.10.2024
EN

On the occasion of Seeing, Looking, Filming, the Johan van der Keuken retrospective presented by Sabzian and CINEMATEK, Sabzian launches a new print publication. The publication contains Van der Keuken’s original French text ‘Méandres,’ along with translations in Dutch and English.