Joris Ivens

A Tale of the Wind (1989)

It is an autobiographical fiction starring Ivens as an old man who has spent his life trying to "tame the wind and harness the sea" by capturing them on film. ...

The Uyghurs (1977)

Filmed in western China in the late 1970s, this documentary portrays the Uyghur people, a Turkic-speaking Muslim minority living in the Xinjiang region. Directed by Joris Ivens and Marceline Loridan-Ivens, the film documents daily life and cultural practic ...

The Kazakhs (1977)

This documentary examines the lives of the Kazakh ethnic minority in western China at the end of the Cultural Revolution. Directed by Joris Ivens and Marceline Loridan-Ivens, the film observes everyday life, work, and cultural traditions within a region sh ...

How Yukong Moved the Mountains (1976)

From 1972 until 1974, Joris Ivens and Marceline Loridan, along with a Chinese film crew, documented the last days of the Cultural Revolution, marking the end of an era. The vast amount of footage they shot was edited into 14 films of varying lengths. Focus ...

The Pharmacy: Shanghai (1976)

Filmed inside Pharmacy No. 3 in Shanghai, Joris Ivens and Marceline Loridan-Ivens document the daily work of a state pharmacy that functions as both a dispensary and a neighborhood medical center. The film focuses on routine interactions between staff and ...

The Football Incident (1976)

A César award winning documentary about a high school in Beijing where a student throws a ball in the direction of the teacher who had just asked them to stop playing. The class then meets to discuss this problem. ...

The People and Their Guns (1970)

Filmed in Laos in 1968, this four-part documentary examines the armed struggle against foreign intervention during the Indochina conflicts. The film focuses on the relationship between the population and guerrilla forces engaged in the war. ...

Some Evidence (1969)

A North Vietnam–era documentary attributed to Joris Ivens that compiles graphic evidence of the effects of U.S. weapons—shown across bodies, livestock, farmland, and buildings—using clinical documentation and damage statistics to support its case. ...

The 17th Parallel (1968)

On the border of North and South Vietnam, civilians live underground and cultivate their land in the dead of night, farmers take up arms, and bombs fall like clockwork. Joris Ivens and Marceline Loridan's record of daily life in one of the most volatile re ...

Far from Vietnam (1967)

In seven different parts, Godard, Ivens, Klein, Lelouch, Marker, Resnais, and Varda show their sympathy for the North-Vietnamese army during the Vietnam War. ...

The Threatening Sky (1966)

This documentary presents the Vietnam War as seen from within Vietnam, focusing on civilian life, industrial and agricultural labor, and organized resistance under sustained aerial bombardment. Introduced by Bertrand Russell, the film situates the conflict ...

The Mistral (1966)

Dutch documentary filmmaker Joris Ivens follows the course of the famous wind as it originates in the Alps and finds its way to the Mediterranean Sea. Natural sounds and creative camera work provide a mood film showing the effect of the fury of the wind on ...

Rotterdam-Europoort (1966)

Instructional film about the (former) biggest harbour in the world, with a hybrid format. Well known Ivens themes are revisited, like The Flying Dutchman in the fiction part of the film, who returns to the modern day Rotterdam, that has recovered very well ...

Valparaiso (1964)

In 1962 Joris Ivens was invited to Chile for teaching and filmmaking. Together with students he made …A Valparaíso, one of his most poetic films. Contrasting the prestigious history of the seaport with the present the film sketches a portrait of the cit ...

Le train de la victoire (1964)

A film about Salvador Allende's 1964 presidential campaign. ...

The Small Tent (1963)

Shot alongside "À Valparaíso," "The Small Tent" observes a small circus performance perched high above the city and focuses on the faces and reactions of the children in its audience. The film offers a tender, poetic look at fleeting joy and communal spe ...

To Arms, We Are Fascists! (1962)

Documentary compiled from archives and accompanied by a poet's commentary, shows the sweep of modern Italian history from 1911 to 1961, centering on the conditions leading to Fascism and the post-WWII reaction to the Fascist experience. ...

Cuba, a People Armed (1961)

Shot in Cuba in 1961, this documentary follows a volunteer militia brigade organized in defense of the Cuban Revolution. Joris Ivens and his crew observe military training, daily life, and collective discipline among civilian volunteers. The film emphasize ...

Pueblo en armas (1961)

Joris Ivens documentary. ...

Italy Is Not a Poor Country (1960)

A documentary about Italy's underground oil and metan deposits, sponsored by Italian state-owned oil company, ENI. Pictures of the state-of-the-art oil infrastructure are mixed with others of the traditional way of living of poorer Italian regions. ...

Demain à Nanguila (1960)

"Demain à Nanguila" follows Moussa, a young man who leaves his village for Bamako in search of opportunity but instead encounters hardship and disillusionment. His return home becomes a reflection on rural exodus, tradition, and the challenges facing Mali ...

Letters from China (1958)

About the way of life in the East, in China, during the months before spring. An early spring. ...

The Seine Meets Paris (1957)

A poetic ode to the River Seine, Ivens' distinguished camera eye surveys its lively banks and step-stone canals with a vérité candor, a beguiling elan. ...

The Wind Rose (1957)

An international anthology about the struggles of female workers around the world. ...

Bold Adventure (1956)

In the 16th century, as Flanders is invaded by the Spanish, Till the Mischievous uses stratagems to enter the service of Ferdinand Alvare de Toledo, Duke of Alba, and from there organize resistance against the invaders. ...

My Child (1956)

The film is an appeal by the International Democratic Women's Federation against a new war, calling on all mothers of the world to protect their children. ...

Song of the Rivers (1954)

An allegorical documentary about the workers of the world, whose common destinies and hopes for peace are symbolically united by the rivers that run through their respective lands. The film was shot on the Volga, the Mississippi, the Nile, the Yangtze, the ...

Peace Race 1952 (1952)

This colour documentary reports about the 5th international peace journey which took place from 30 April to 13 May 1952 and in which 94 drivers from 16 nations took part. Twelve individual stages from Warsaw via Berlin to Prague had to be mastered. The tot ...

Friendship Triumphs (1951)

Film about the third 'Weltfestspiele der Jugend und Studenten für den Frieden' in East Berlin, 1951. West Germany is represented as a degenerate country which has been occupied by the Americans and is still inclined to fascism. We see the construction of ...

Peace Will Win (1951)

"Peace Will Win" documents the Second World Congress of Peace Defenders, held in Warsaw in November 1950 after the event was relocated from Sheffield. The film records speeches, demonstrations, and international opposition to war during the early Cold War ...

The First Years (1950)

A documentary about the problems of post-war reconstruction and the beginnings of socialism in Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia and Poland. ...

Polsko (1949)

Indonesia Calling (1946)

Filmed secretly in Sydney by Dutch documentarian Joris Ivens, this short records the solidarity of Indonesian seamen, Australian trade unionists, and local activists who refused to support Dutch efforts to restore colonial rule after World War II. More tha ...

Know Your Enemy: Japan (1945)

Frank Capra-directed propaganda film produced during World War II depicting the United States' new enemy: Japan. ...

Action Stations (1943)

"Action Stations" documents the work of a Canadian corvette escorting Allied convoys across the North Atlantic during World War II. Combining staged battle reconstruction with observational footage, the film portrays shipboard training, life at sea, and th ...

Corvette Port Arthur (1943)

This short documentary examines the role of convoy ships during World War II, focusing on the Corvette Port Arthur. The corvette, a highly mobile weapon of destruction, is used to combat German U-boats and escort convoys through the Atlantic Ocean. Followi ...

Our Russian Front (1942)

Using footage taken by Soviet battlefront cameramen, this penetrating documentary about Russian life during World War II is narrated by Walter Huston and features the likes of Joseph Stalin and Marshal Timoshenko. ...

Power and the Land (1940)

A documentary showing the struggle to bring electricity to rural areas of the United States. ...

The 400 Million (1939)

Joris Ivens's wartime documentary of China's resistance to the Japanese invasion, cross-cutting civilian exodus and bombing with the Nationalist state's mobilization—schools, industry, dispersed war production, foreign relief—and guerrilla fighting. Fr ...

The Spanish Earth (1937)

Joris Ivens's advocacy documentary for the Republican cause intercuts a besieged Madrid with a nearby village digging an irrigation canal, linking the war to bread, land, and survival. Produced by the writers' collective Contemporary Historians, edited by ...

Der Kampf (1936)

Borinage (1934)

Henri Storck and Joris Ivens' landmark of social documentary, blending staged scenes with locals and on-the-spot reportage to depict the 1932 miners' strike in Belgium's Borinage—evictions, hunger, and police repression—transforming outrage into a call ...

New Earth (1933)

The film is a documentary portraying a struggle as man tries to subdue nature. To prevent flooding and for purposes of land reclamation, the people of the Netherlands struggle and succeed in building a breaker, thereby eliminating the wild inland body of w ...

Song of Heroes (1932)

The building of blast furnaces Magnitogorsk and the Kubas Basin by Komsomol, the Communist Union of youth, as part of Stalin's first five-year plan. ...

Creosote (1932)

Commissioned film for the Continental Commission for the Propagation of Creosote Oil about extraction and application of creosote oil (carboleum), a preservative distilled from coal tar that protects wood from fungi and insects. Footage was shot in Poland, ...

Philips-Radio (1931)

A poetic industrial short that follows a radio from molten glass to finished set: glassblowers shape valves, conveyors and assembly lines build chassis, cabinets, and speakers, engineers test and prototype—ending on a playful stop-motion "dance" of louds ...

Memória Cubana (2010)

Through the files of Cuban cinema news program Noticieros ICAIC Latinoamericanos, the documentary shows the most relevant events of the second half of the 20th century as seen by the documentary filmmakers of the island. During three decades and under the ...

Een oude vriend van het Chinese volk (2008)

The Dutch documentary filmmaker Joris Ivens (1898-1989) received the honorary title 'Old friend of the Chinese people' from the Chinese communist regime. One of the reasons was the fact that in 1938 he gave the communists the camera that captured the first ...

A Tale of the Wind (1989)

It is an autobiographical fiction starring Ivens as an old man who has spent his life trying to "tame the wind and harness the sea" by capturing them on film. ...

Havre (1986)

Lili lives near the port of Le Havre. She is mourning her lover Pablo, who died leaving unfinished a video game he was developing for a Japanese trust. A young boy decides to take over the project, while Lili, guided by a mysterious figure called Doctor Di ...

Ciné-mafia (1980)

Three pioneers of documentary filmmaking – Joris Ivens, Henri Storck, and the man behind the camera, Jean Rouch – recall the early days of the documentary genre and speak about their creative methods and sources of inspiration. This lively discussion b ...

Grierson (1973)

A portrait of John Grierson, the first Canadian Government Film Commissioner and founder of the National Film Board in 1939. Interweaving archival footage, interviews with people who knew him and footage of Grierson himself, this film is a sensitive and in ...

The People and Their Guns (1970)

Filmed in Laos in 1968, this four-part documentary examines the armed struggle against foreign intervention during the Indochina conflicts. The film focuses on the relationship between the population and guerrilla forces engaged in the war. ...

The Threatening Sky (1966)

This documentary presents the Vietnam War as seen from within Vietnam, focusing on civilian life, industrial and agricultural labor, and organized resistance under sustained aerial bombardment. Introduced by Bertrand Russell, the film situates the conflict ...

World Without a Game (1966)

Documentary portrait of Dziga Vertov, father of documentary cinema. ...

New Earth (1933)

The film is a documentary portraying a struggle as man tries to subdue nature. To prevent flooding and for purposes of land reclamation, the people of the Netherlands struggle and succeed in building a breaker, thereby eliminating the wild inland body of w ...