film fragments (2015)
A selection of never-before-seen cinema sketches by Zwartjes, compiled by Stanley Schtinter with music from Zwartjes' record Tapes I. ...
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Frans Zwartjes (*Alkmaar, 1927) is a film-maker, musician, violin maker, artist and sculptor. In the late 1960's he became well known with films showing grotesquely dressed-up actors involved in little power-mad sexual games. Hysterics and cruelty, are his regular topics. Susan Sontag called Zwartjes ‘the most important contemporary experimental film maker. Zwartjes made over fifty films. ‘Pentimento’ (1979), ‘Living’ (1971) and the ‘In Extremo’ (1981) seem to be his best-known films. Director and Faculty of Monster's documentary, "The Great Wizard" portrays Zwartjes as a self-conscious artist, who comments on the world in a farcical way. The film was partly shot at Zwartjes's home, while he was composing.
A selection of never-before-seen cinema sketches by Zwartjes, compiled by Stanley Schtinter with music from Zwartjes' record Tapes I. ...
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"The Great Magician" - A portrait of Frans Zwartjes (1927-2017), sometimes called 'the most important experimental filmmaker of his time' by the American essayist Susan Sontag. ...
Watch NowA short documentary about dancer and choreographer Rudi van Dantzig. ...
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Frans Zwartjes' adaptation of Euripides' tragedy, originally produced for stage by the actresses Josée Ruiter and Çanci Geraerdts. ...
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The central element in this film is formed by the preparation for and execution of a performance. The performance, a parachute jump, is carried out by an artist (Perrenet) and his girlfriend during the opening of an exhibition. As spectators to the perform ...
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In a monumental building a group of scientists submit women to obscure experiments in which sexuality and cruelty constantly merge into one another. "Pentimento" is an art-historical term for a hidden image underneath the actual image giving an indication ...
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First full-length experimental feature by filmmaker Zwartjes about an actress, played by Willeke van Ammelrooy, who during the whole film, in continuously changes moods, is busy in her room. Eventually, she is made an offer by telephone. But what offer doe ...
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Set on the landing and the stairs of Zwartjes' new house, then still empty, in The Hague. The filmmaker suggests a mysterious and complex space by using a 'floating' camera to film a number of crawling, creeping personages. ...
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Zwartjes made many films without dialogue or sound. The music can however be very important. Zwartjes composes it himself, sometimes together with his brother Rudolf and Lodewijk de Boer. Audition is a fine example of a Zwartjes film with an important soun ...
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First film by Paul de Nooijer, in collaboration with his artistic father Frans Zwartjes. Moving Stills shows a series of photographs by Françoise de Nooijer, which are joined, by means of editing and colour effects, and turned into a moving picture. The e ...
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Frans Zwartjes and his wife explore their new home, and the sexual tension they've brought with them to it. ...
Watch NowTwo girls nestle beside each other on a couch and try desperately to conceal their mutual craving. Sexuality is suggested through the weird rhythm of the film's editing and the tactile quality of the images. ...
Watch NowIn this experimental film we see people in varying combinations walking and crawling through sand and grass and along the waterfront in a very quick assembly. ...
Watch NowShort, abstract film of a woman in a toilet. Black and white film with some tinted shots. ...
Watch NowFilm shot entirely in the open air with women walking around a garden, life-sized photos in the grass and people at the table. A film from the series Home Sweet Home. ...
Watch NowObservations of a woman with a Japanese mask dressed in a large painted robe. She moves along the ground amid a (photographed or painted) backdrop of trees and a Japanese window. In the beginning, she is restless and her movements occasionally reveal her n ...
Watch NowSpectator is one of the early masterpieces by Zwartjes. The film explicitly shows one of Frans Zwartjes' main themes: the relationship between husband and wife. It is a relationship that is strongly marked by power and domination, sexual attraction and rep ...
Watch NowFrans Zwartjes' two visions of womanhood in Behind Your Walls have all the febrile frustration associated with his previous work. Flesh looks like crisp paper about to be despoiled, a torpid heat reduces movement to fidgets and hesitations. ...
Watch NowA man and his female helper lather a blindfolded woman's naked body with various foodstuffs. ...
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Film in three parts. A man and a woman, Trix Zwartjes and Lodewijk de Boer (Zwartjes's regular actors) circle around each other in a house and outside at the water side. They attract and reject each other. ...
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A strangely-dressed man reaches for some sorbet and then eats it; A playful, expertly-edited excercise from Zwartjes. ...
Watch NowA man in drag sits on a couch holding a fan. The wallpaper behind him is floral patterned. Although the man does little more than looking around and waving his fan, Zwartjes created enormous tension. ...
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To mark his ninetieth birthday, EYE has restored Zwartjes' very first film, originally shot on Super-8 and long thought lost. Zwartjes started his career as a violinist and visual artist. He took photographs, made music and built instruments – but only r ...
Watch Now"The Great Magician" - A portrait of Frans Zwartjes (1927-2017), sometimes called 'the most important experimental filmmaker of his time' by the American essayist Susan Sontag. ...
Watch NowFrans Zwartjes and his wife explore their new home, and the sexual tension they've brought with them to it. ...
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