Visages villages: brilliance of the normal

Posted on December 11, 2017 by wordpressgrethe

In the film Visages Villages two outstanding artists, 88 year old filmmaker Agnès Varda and 33 year old photographer JR, show the brilliance of the normal in a way that has not been done before. In JR’s van that is equiped to produce on-the-spot photo posters they cross villages and a harbour in search of people to photograph – and spots to present them on. The effect of their method is outstanding from the point of view ‘art and creativity’ and most moving for the individuals that are touched by their initiative.

The woman ‘who was just a server in the restaurant’ becomes – through her poster on the wall of a house – the most photographed woman of the village; the wives of the tough men working in the harbour are drawn out of the shadow into the light, both vulnerable and strong; the only inhabitant left in mine workers houses, almost forgotten by the world, becomes a monument of resistance; and so on. What is absolutely unique about this road movie that could also be called a road documentary, is the normality shown in its full brilliance. It shows that normality can be infinitely more interesting and great than the special.

While creating all this, the dynamics between Agnès Varda and JR in and outside JR’s van follow their own road, interesting in itself. These people that differ so much in age find common ground in ambition, personal traits and mutual respect. From a vivid wheelchair run through Musée du Louvre in Paris to sharing sadness and perspectives on life: it forms one breathtaking story for the spectators.
Visages Villages seems to be composed out of many different elements without too much connection. Yet this film shows you life like it is and life seated still sit in your cinema chair, long after the subtitles have gone; thoughtful, amazed, and happy.

Prix Festival de Cannes: L’œil d’or pour Meilleure Film Documentaire

Trailer Visages Villages: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlQ104-3XYs

Other reviews
* https://vaguevisages.com/2017/05/20/cannes-film-festival-review-agnes-varda-and-jrs-visages-villages/
* https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/faces-places-visages-villages-cannes-review/5118156.article
* https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/may/19/visages-villages-review-agnes-varda-jr-documentary-cannes-2017

Blogs about movies you might be interested in:
Quand on a 17 ans
Loin des hommes
Kurtulus son durak

De jacht op mijn vader / the hunt for my father

Posted on May 7, 2017 by wordpressgrethe

De jacht op mijn vader: The hunt for my father is a very interesting documentary made by Gülsah Dogan. It is the second movie that I see from her and again I think her work is outstanding in many aspects.
In this documentary Gülsah Dogan follows the author Karin Amatmoekrim who is looking for her father Eric Lie in Suriname. Karin wants to write a book about her father; her mother left the country when she was still a baby and went to the Netherlands, apparently because she was not the only woman for Eric Lie. He as a famous Taekwondo champion and good looking man was popular among women. Thus Karin grew up without father far away, in the Netherlands and it is Gülsah’s quality to show the underlying feelings not by words, but in images. It is difficult not to feel some irritations during this documentary: in the title it is about the ‘hunt for her father’, however it is possible to conclude that it is more about the author herself than about the father.
The story takes place in the beautiful tropic context of Surinam and unfolds in interesting scenes and surprising pictures of the nature: from a cockridge defending itself against ants to trips on the river Marowijne.
Gülsah Dogan has produced another masterpiece after the outstanding documentary Naziha’s Spring. You can see it (in Dutch under the title De jacht op mijn vader) Thursday 11 May 2017 at 22.55h on NPO2. Let’s hope Gülsah Dogan’s work will be translated in the future because it is special what she makes.

A link describing the documentary (in Dutch):
https://www.waterkant.net/suriname/2017/05/06/documentaire-jacht-op-vader-11-mei-op-npo2/

Blogs about documentaries you might also like:
The Van Waveren Tapes
Banana pancakes and the children of the sticky rice
Taxi Teheran

Palmpasen in Jordanië – daar waar je invloed hebt…

Posted on April 18, 2017 by wordpressgrethe

genderdiversiteit jordanië

Genderdiversiteit in Jordanië: vorige week gaf ik op Palmpasen (zondag = een gewone werkdag aldaar) een training over genderdiversiteit aan een team van een groot Jordaans bedrijf. ‚Zaten daar ook mannen bij‘, wordt me nogal eens gevraagd over trainingen in de Arabische wereld. Het antwoord is ja, en vaak in meerderheid. En ze staan bijna allemaal positief tegenover gender diversiteit— Nederlandse discussies als ‚waarom moet dit eigenlijk en waarom heeft dit nu prioriteit‘ worden in landen als Jordanië overgeslagen. Je gaat er gewoon aan het werk en daarmee maak je sneller meters.

Tijdens de training kwam via social media het bericht over de aanslagen op Koptische christenen in Egypte binnen. De verslagenheid was groot. De deelnemers vergeleken het meteen met een grote aanslag in Bagdad, 94 doden, aan de vooravond van een islamitisch feest en interpreteerden dat terreur juist mikt op mensen die rustig bidden en in vrede hun godsdienst willen belijden. Vanuit Nederlandse ogen lijken Egypte en Bagdad misschien ver weg van Jordanië maar de Arabische wereld heeft een sterk eenheidsgevoel. Een dergelijke aanslag komt dus keihard binnen ook al vindt die vele honderden kilometers verderop in een ander land plaats.

Veiligheid is sowieso een issue, ook in Jordanië zelf. Zo was niet alleen de locatie waar de training plaats vond zwaar beveiligd maar ook de streek eromheen omdat IS op dat moment actief rekruteerde daar. Maar zoals gezegd, niemand vroeg waarom genderdiversiteit in Jordanië nu eigenlijk moest of prioriteit kreeg, integendeel. Er heerste een sfeer waarin elk individu doet wat hij kan, want: in deze context telt elke actie. De wereld kunnen we niet veranderen maar op de inclusiviteit van onze eigen organisatie hebben we wel grip, meenden de deelnemers. En zo is het. Ze waren hartstikke gemotiveerd voor betere genderdiversiteit in Jordanië. We hebben dan ook de rest van de dag hard doorgewerkt. Hou je van diversiteit & inclusie, laat je dan niet ontmoedigen en onderneem actie op de terreinen waarop je zelf invloed hebt.

Over eerdere ervaringen met diversiteitstrainingen in Arabische landen lees je hier:
https://grethevangeffen.nl/2017/02/23/diversiteit-marokko-en-tunesie/
https://grethevangeffen.nl/2016/07/26/training-diversiteit-in-jordanie/
https://grethevangeffen.nl/2016/06/18/diversiteit-in-jordanie/

Diversiteit in Marokko en Tunesië

Posted on February 23, 2017 by wordpressgrethe

diversiteit inclusie marokko tunesie Mijn ontdekkingstocht naar diversiteit & inclusie in Arabische landen gaat verder, ditmaal via diversiteit in Marokko en Tunesië. Na de start in Jordanië (Jordanië blog 2 en Jordanië blog 1) ging ik aan de slag in Tunesië en Marokko met buitengewoon spannend verlopen trainingen. Niet alleen wisselt steeds de context, zowel nationaal als qua type bedrijven, ook is het bekijken van de wereld door de bril van diversiteit & inclusie een volkomen nieuw gegeven in die landen.
Ik betreed dan ook met enige schroom de zaal waar de training plaats vindt. Gaat het programma voldoende passen in de eigen context van diversiteit in Marokko en Tunesië? Wat vinden ze ervan dat een Nederlander deze training komt geven? Hoe zal het ditmaal gaan met de taal? Want trainingen geven in het Engels en Frans betekent niet alleen voor mij werken in een tweede taal, ook de deelnemers hebben meestal een andere taal als moedertaal.
Het duurt gelukkig nog geen uur voordat we al helemaal aan elkaar gewend zijn. De inclusiviteit van de bedrijfsculturen die ik heb ervaren, helpt daar enorm bij. Diezelfde inclusiviteit leidt tot bovengemiddeld goede samenwerking als teamopdrachten moeten worden uitgevoerd.
In Tunesië maakte ik bovendien discussies mee zoals ik ze zelden hoor bij trainingen in Nederland of Duitsland: de deelnemers waren heel open in het delen van ervaringen en vlogen elkaar hier en daar flink in de haren over de vraag hoe inclusief de organisatie nou werkelijk was > op een inclusieve manier, zonder elkaar te beoordelen of zuur te worden, wat in Noordwest-Europa bij al teveel openheid in bedrijven nog weleens het risico is. Ik was diep onder de indruk en, ook niet onbelangrijk, wat hebben we gelachen. Toen ik de documentaire Danny in Arabistan – Tunesië zag – een aanrader! – herkende ik datzelfde beeld.
diversiteit inclusie marokko In Marokko werd ik daarbij nog verrast door de grote persoonlijke warmte van de deelnemers. Hard werken ging er gemakkelijk samen met positieve emotionaliteit, Een deelneemster gaf me na afloop haar prachtige oorbellen mee, als aandenken namens de hele groep.
Wat is het ontzettend leuk om zo samen aan diversiteit & inclusie te werken. En ja, ze mogen mijn voor trainingen diversiteit in Marokko en Tunesië zeker weer bellen!

Andere blogs over dit thema:
Seba culture and diversity workshops in Malawi
All managers are alike

Anne Frank House Amsterdam: remembrance and reflection

Posted on November 24, 2016 by wordpressgrethe

Anne Frank House bookcase
2000 inhabitants of Amsterdam got free tickets to visit the Anne Frank House during evening hours without queues. I was lucky to be one of them: a great initiative, thanks! It was wonderful to wander through the ‘Achterhuis’ in a quiet and respectful atmosphere.
The Anne Frank House is not far from my home and I pass the long rows of tourists a few times a week or I better say: try to pass….It is always busy, noisy, not a place where you’d like to go as an inhabitant.
I think I went there once, as a child – I remember it quite well, especially the book case (on the picture) that served as protection from the entrance to the hide-out of 8 Jewish people. These people spent 2+ years there but were betrayed at the end and only one of them, the father of Anne Frank, survived the holocaust.
anne frank house quote Compared to my childhood visit many elements were added in the ‘museum’; quotes on walls or on blinded windows – short video’s from witnesses, classmates of Anne and the like. They are very impressive.
What I remember most are the words of Otto Frank on his daughter’s diary. He always felt close to his daughter but when he read her diary after the war, he realized that she never showed the deep thoughts and feelings that she wrote down. Since that moment he thinks that parents rarely know their children to the full. I guess that could be true. The way he expresses is very refined and respectful towards his daughter. I cannot write it down, you have to go visit the Anne Frank House and see that movie to understand the impression it made. And then imagine that he read that diary when she had already died (when she had already been killed). He would never have the opportunity to ask her any question any more…
Anne Frank House opening hours I really thank the Anne Frank House for this opportunity. I wonder why this does not become more usual in Amsterdam. As for me, it is not about the free ticket, but the fact that I could go at 21.00h (I came home from work only at 19.30 and had to have dinner first) and that I did not need to wait in a queue or go in with plenty of loud speaking tourists. Would it be financially difficult for musea to have similar evening offers or are they just not used to opening hours in the evening?
As for the Anne Frank House tonight, it left me with quite some emotions as we live in difficult times and the idea that ‘it could happen again’ is in the hearts and minds of many. A place for remembrance and reflection, most valuable.

Other blogs that you might find interesting:
Jewish museum Warsaw
Sderot: 15 seconds to run for your life
Mikvé Israel-Immanuel synagogue: religious pearl in orange-loving Willemstad
Grandfathers, Jews and the impulse to act

Unique coins in Money Museum Tunis

Posted on October 19, 2016 by wordpressgrethe

money museum tunis

‘Well, they have coins’, Tunesians told me when I asked them what the Money Museum (Musée de la Monnaie) is like. Their tune was not very respectful, in their eyes it did not seem worth a visit. I wanted to see the museum anyway, especially as it is not mentioned in tourist guides and these can be the most interesting visits like the Museum of the History of Cypriot coinage, another hidden pearl. I was certainly not disappointed.
This museum is found within the Tunesian Central Bank and depicts the history of coinage in the area: that means it starts already in the time of Carthago, 4th century BC. Most interesting for me were the coins from the era of the califates like the Ommayyads, Fatimides, Aghlabides and Abbasides: it was like a new world opening for me. musee monnaie tunis Already in the first century of islamic era, coins were made with Qu’ran inscriptions and this museum shows a good quantity of them (a lot in gold, part of the attractiveness of course).
Another thing I learned is that coins can be shiite or sunni. First I thought I misunderstood but the proof was in front of my eyes.

shiite coins

sunni coins

I seriously studied these coins but I am afraid my expertise is too limited to understand the subtile differences.
There is, overall, a very good explanation that goes with these coins but not in English: in Arabic and in French. For the coins of the early centuries I must say it was difficult to relate the information given to the coins as exposed. This suddenly improved when the period of antiquities was left behind. From then on, all is clear, although sometimes quite detailed. For experts, this is the absolute place to be.
The museum also shows some interesting notes that tell us which heroes of the past are valuated enough to be on the national banknotes. I saw f.ex. Ibn Rachik, Hannibal, Ibn Khaldoun.
It has many square coins: square coins musee monnaie tunis And it presents plenty of memorial coins, and coins of special sites where I found Amsterdam among them.
coins about sites musee monnaie tunis library musee de la monnaie tunis Last but not least: the library they have offers books in 5 or 6 languages, not just about coinage but also about history and art of the region. It is an excellent collection for those who want to study and it seems to be an undiscovered place: you can sit there in complete tranquillity, surrounded by friendly workers who are happy to welcome anyone interested in their cultural heritage.
The Money Museum (Musée de la Monnaie) of Tunis: worth a visit!

Interested in money? Read here about Money Museum Gaziantep
Also: Heimat Museum Borkum

Quand on a 17 ans

Posted on May 10, 2016 by wordpressgrethe

quand on a 17 ans

Another one of these great French movies: Quand on a 17 ans (being 17). French art means that the story is multilayered; the story does not run from one action to the other but shows the diversity of events happening in just a few people’s lifes in a mountain village high in the Pyrenees.
That setting is great, absolutely well chosen and beautifully exploited. You’ll see the nature of high mountains in different seasons. The very best scenery is at night, in the snow white mountains and the moon shining, when one of the main characters takes a bath in a lake reflecting the peak and the trees.
The main story in Quand on a 17 ans is about two young guys who seem to hate each other, but guess what at the end of the movie… 🙂 in that sense it is a quite romantic movie where ‘tout va bien qui finit bien’. The road to that good ending has enough complexity in it to keep the spectator interested. Apart from that, there is life in the movie and death and all human weaknesses and anxieties as they can be lived, even high up in the mountains. Quand on a 17 ans is worth watching!

Blogs about French movies:
Loin des hommes
Visages villages

Dheepan: an outstanding movie about refugees

Posted on September 16, 2015 by wordpressgrethe

dheepan movie

Dheepan is somehow a ‘neutral’ movie about refugees as it concerns refugees from Sri Lanka; I worked with many of them in the ’90ties but today we concentrate on other regions as every reader knows. Technically this choice in the movie creates a healthy distance to emotions in actuality. And practically, it makes no difference.
Refugees run for a reason, most often a quite serious one. And yes, they are surrounded by luck-seekers, criminals who have other reasons to flee and economic migrants. Making the difference between one and the other is an ideal but in practice not very easy. However the movie is not about asylum policies and dilemmas, it is about how people flee and become a refugee and how they experience the country in which they arrive.
In this movie, the Sri Lanka refugees find a house and a job in the banlieu of Paris, in one of the worst banlieus – I think the movie maker even wanted to point out that the refugees run from a war to end up in another one. It is as much a complaint against the ‘drugs in banlieu’ situation as about the refugee situation. Specifically, the total lack of law enforcement (no police or authorities at all) surprises the public.
I think the movie is brilliant in the way it depicts the refugees. I recognized every emotion, both in daily life and in the history of violence and resistence that refugees from war and conflict areas bring with them – not as a choice but as a fact. My experience with that is both friendship and work and I found the movie Dheepa shiveringly realistic and very strong in the way of showing the emotional side.
As a former French teacher, I regretted that the refugees end up in England – to their satisfaction – and not somewhere else in France, a country I love. This is, of course, a biased view 🙂 Anyway the movie ends well, which in a world of problems is nice and more encouraging to go and watch the movie than the opposite.
What surprised me is that nowadays every discussion and debate in the Netherlands is about refugees but we were only 8 spectators: 8! in a large cinema. Sometimes I wonder how much indepth knowledge people want about reality – I see loads of over-emotional people and few people able to handle the complexity that comes with refugee issues. Let’s face reality even when it is not simple. Go watch the Dheepan movie, warmly recommended!

Other blogs about refugees:
500.000 Syrian refugees in Gaziantep
Lore, a movie that silences the public

Banana pancakes and the children of the sticky rice

Posted on July 18, 2015 by wordpressgrethe

Banana pancakes and the children of the sticky rice is a great documentary about two guys, or maybe an entire village in Laos in a period of starting tourism. The place is still ‘all natural’ and the first tourists arriving, mainly backpackers from France, Belgium and the Netherlands, are startled by the purity of the place. The village develops in many aspects and the two guys that are particularly followed in this documentary try to improve their life by offering touristic services. The road they go is so interesting!
The tourists themselves are also quite interesting, some of their conversations are recorded. They have their opinions about life in the village and how it develops and it does not seem to match a lot with the culture and desires of the villagers themselves. Although very sympathic, there was also a note of arrogance in their song.
From the point of view ‘image taking’ the documentary has quite some ‘vague’ moments, maybe nice as a hobby for the filmer but for spectators not always attractive I thought. Fortunately, many good and sharp moments offer enough compensation 😉 So go see this documentary now because usually this kind of movies do not stay long in the cinemas. More info: https://www.facebook.com/laosdocumentary

Other movies with a strong cultural side I wrote about that you might like:
Kedi
Dheepan

A tribute to Charleston victims

Posted on June 19, 2015 by wordpressgrethe

Tomb unknown slave New Orleans Made out of chains

Tribute to Charleston victims

Yesterday we were shocked by the death of 9 black people who were shot for the very reason of being black. This is the kind of tragedy that cannot be put into words – it is the downside of humanity, or should I say inhumanity. We cannot believe that it happened, but it did in Charleston, USA today.

As a tribute to the victims, I re-publish a part of my diary about the international diversity conference in New Orleans 2006 (yes, shortly after hurricane Katrina). May the strength of people who were slaves, who protested against slavery and who protest against the remaining infections of that period, be blessed and reinforced. May their tears be dried by soulmates and friends.

Tomb unknown slave New Orleans

Building by remembering (New Orleans, June 11, 2006)
By coincidence we walked into a church, just because the door was opened. It appeared to be the only door where in the time of slavery, banks were bought by free black people for slaves to sit upon. Outside of the church we find, unique in the USA, the grave of the unknown slave (the photo on top). A place that makes you silent. A sign of resistance, a sign of hope. It confirms the thesis of the Museum of Art, that the future is built by commemorating the past, not by forgetting it. The power to rebuilt a town like New Orleans can be found in that concept. Because it is sure that people will rebuild the town. And the question of the future is for whom they will rebuild the city (black or white).

I remember that we asked who was in the grave of the unknown slave. The answer was: no one in particular. So many slaves died here, they were buried all around so all of the ground in New Orleans is sacred, the church people said. This made me as silent as the Charleston murders did yesterday.

A blog that might interest you: Who tells your history? and other questions
A publication related to this subject (in Dutch): Zoek een filantroop voor Slavernijmuseum

Adana archaeological museum: closed???

Posted on June 13, 2015 by wordpressgrethe

adana archeological museum

The Adana archaeological museum is one of the ten oldest museums in Turkey – opened already in 1924, the official government website mentions: www.adanamuze.gov.tr. You don’t need to speak Turkish to understand the unique pieces to be seen in this museum: “Neolitik, Kalkolitik, Bronz, Proto-Hitit, Hitit, Yunan, Roma, Bizans, Selçuk ve Osmanlı devirlerine ait eserlerinin yanı sıra, az miktarda Asur, Fenike ve Ermeni eseri….” But you can find some English information here: Adana_Archaeology_Museum and here, including beautiful pictures: adanaarchaelogical. Unfortunately that is all you will see as they closed this museum completely.
I was in Adana for a trademission with our ambassador and I decided to book a later return ticket the next day, because I really wanted to see this museum. I found myself in front of a locked fence. ‘I will talk myself into it’, I thought. In Turkey, most things are possible if you are kind and you speak Turkish. But the guard at the fence was different: there was no way to see even a glimpse of the beauty in this museum. ‘There were not enough visitors’, he explained and ‘it is my responsibility, I cannot do it’.
In the meantime, I am reading the book Toprak from Buket Uzuner. I bought it at the airport in Istanbul, it was in the Top 10 of Turkish books. In that book a teacher says about the Hitite city of Çorum (page 31, sorry for failures in translation, my fault): “Children, if the Hitites had lived in a western country, I guarantee you, the world’s most important archeologists and historians would work there, all the world’s tourists would stream into the city. If the people of Çorum would become master of their local history, Çorum would already have developed as an international star with trade and book fair, food and tourism festivals on world level. Be sure children that if you want it, the Hitite heritage will attract as much attention as the Egyptian pyramids, an important jewel! (…)”
Need I say more. Heritage, a matter of neglect or a matter of joy and wealth.
Let’s keep hope that one day the museum will open again. It is not difficult to find, if you see this spectacular new Sabancι mosque, go around the corner and you have arrived.
sabanci mosque

Other archaeological museums in Turkey’s South
Archeaological museum Gaziantep
Medusa Glass Museum

And the Archaeological museum Amman, Jordan

Street cats in Adana (Turkey)

Posted on June 3, 2015 by wordpressgrethe

street cat in adana Street cats in Adana
Yesterday I wrote about the street cats in Cyprus; that they are somehow loved, although the fact that they exist in such large numbers shows that the Cypriots do not deal enough with this problem: https://grethevangeffen.nl/2015/06/02/street-cats-in-cyprus/. For street cats in Adana, however, the situation is worse. It can be seen from t street cats in adana - kitten he street cats’ behaviour, they are afraid. It was almost impossible to take pictures of street cats because they would run away immediately like this very small and sad kitten. It really panicked, terrible; it did not think ‘hey here is a friend that will give me some food’. The only cat I could photograph quitely was a sick cat, also quite sad:
If we think that animal behaviour is an expression of local values, there is quite some development work to do for street cats in Adana – they can learn from Cyprus or from Istanbul where things have developed better already for street cats: https://grethevangeffen.nl/2012/03/03/istanbul-and-its-street-cats/.
When cats are either afraid or ill, local values need reflection!

A blog about the great documentary Kedi that follows street cats in Istanbul.

Grethe van Geffen

culture and diversity

Tag Archives: diversity