In hopes of drawing more attention to the Dutch Studies program
at UCLA, the College of Letters & Science will hold the first
ever Dutch Film Festival in Los Angeles this weekend.
The festival is scheduled to open on Friday at the Samuel
Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills with an introduction by Dutch
director Paul Verhoeven (“Basic Instinct” and
“Total Recall”). The screenings during the festival
will continue on Saturday and Sunday at UCLA’s James Bridges
Theater.
While the theme of the festival is “the Netherlands under
Nazi occupation,” according to organizers, in addition to
examining World War II from the Dutch perspective, one of the main
reasons for having the event is to attract sponsors for the
department.
“Our goal here in concrete terms is that we would like to
be able to fund a chair for a visitor from the Netherlands for one
quarter each year, so that eventually, we will have a Dutch scholar
come to UCLA to teach language, literature, history and art history
“¦ so that there’s something here forever,”
said Professor Margaret Jacob, founder of the festival.
“That’s what we would like.”
While UCLA seems like an odd place for Dutch films to gain
notice, other festivals have also taken root here. The 13th annual
Latin American Films series will take place next January through
February In addition, the tenth annual Celebration of Iranian
Cinema will occur next February through March.
The Dutch festival will include six films, each examining a
different aspect of the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands during
World War II. Due to the abundance of Dutch war films made in the
last thirty years, the title of the festival, “Heroes,
Traitors, and Collaborators,” was not difficult to decide
upon, according to organizers. According to director Paul
Verhoeven, WWII provides a solid anchor for Dutch filmmakers,
including himself, to look for inspiration from.
“It’s probably one of the few existential moments in
the last 200 years of Dutch history, and so I think a lot of
filmmakers have been looking at that period to express
themselves,” Verhoeven said. “Even if they didn’t
live at that time, they have used it to express story elements that
because of the tension, because of the danger, because of death
always being around the corner; it gives you more dramatic
possibilities than in these times.”
With the abundance of Dutch films that center on World War II,
not all of them have been subtitled for English speaking audiences.
After maneuvering past these limitations, however, those involved
with the festival insist that the festival’s films still
provide a complete view for audiences as to what World War II was
really like in the Netherlands. From the Nazis and the villagers
who turning in their Jewish neighbors to the resistance fighters,
the Dutch films work to bring the war to a much more personal level
that people around the world can identify with.
“There are different subjects and they tend to concentrate
more, I think, on the individual, his motives, his
background,” said David van Iterson, Consulate General of the
Netherlands in Los Angeles and one of the sponsors of the festival.
“They’re not glamorous films about heroes doing great
things. They tend to concentrate more on the individual standing up
and trying to do something.”
In contrast to some popular American war films, where characters
are often polarized to be either victorious heroes or evil
villains, organizers say that Dutch war films present characters in
more of a grayscale, where it is hard to judge which characters are
good and which characters are not.
“Some of the films are focused on the heroic part, while
there are also others where the negative side of this resistance is
filmed,” said Consul of Economic and Cultural Affairs of the
Netherlands, Leo Bouter, who also helped program the festival.
In addition to attracting sponsors for Dutch Studies at UCLA,
organizers also hope that the Dutch community in Los Angeles will
take notice of these types of events and come out to UCLA to
participate in them.
“We know the Dutch community is out there, and we want to
make them aware that UCLA is a place where things that concern
Dutch life and Dutch history happen,” Jacob said. “We
want to forge that awareness in that relationship, in not just
Dutch people, but the world in general.”
TICKETS: For more info and screening times, visit
www.dutchfilmfestival.org or e-mail mrice@ucla.edu