Today from 13.30-16.00 hrs, a group of students from the course Philosophy of the Humanities (Area Studies) will record a podcast in our Beehive Studio!

Today from 17:00-20.00 hrs, the UvA Film Club will continue their weekly screening in HVL/BuzzHouse’s Co-Working Space! This week's film is Desert Hearts (Donna Deitch, 1984), with an introduction by Mel Ketelaars.

Desert Hearts is a lesbian classic, showing a surprisingly tender and romantic love story between two women for its time in history. The movie is directed by Donna Deitch, who raised money for its small production budget and her investors largely consisted of women and queer people. Both in its content and in its making the film is a small triumph for women and queer people, putting out an alternative to depressing or highly censored films. In the film, literature professor Vivian Bell (played by Helen Schafer) comes to Nevada to divorce her husband, and meets Cay (played by Patricia Charbonneau), 10 years her junior, and they are immediately drawn to each other, getting closer and closer into each other’s orbit. The film shows an interesting push and pull in its location, the open and wide desert offering freedom, while at the same time being a place with prying eyes and conservatism. But the film does not shy away from this love story, making it one of the few that doesn’t, even compared to lesbian films made today.

Today from 10.00-15.00 hrs, two team of students will record a podcast in our Beehive Studio, first from 10.00-12.30 and then from 13.00-15.00 hrs!

Today from 12.00-22.00 hrs, the team of Radio Swammerdam will have their weekly studio and office day at our Beehive Studio!

Today from 10.00-12.00 hrs, a team of students will record a podcast in our Beehive Studio!

Today from 15.30-21.30 hrs, a team of students will record a podcast in our Beehive Studio!

Today from 13.00-16.00 hrs BuzzHouse’s Beehive Studio will be used for the presentations of the BA thesis proposals of the seminar group working on the theme of ‘Popular Culture, Geopolitics and Identity’!

Today from 17:00-20.00 hrs, the UvA Film Club will continue their weekly screening in HVL/BuzzHouse’s Co-Working Space! This week's film is Pastoral: To Die In The Country (Shūji Terayama, 1974), with an introduction by Gia Tue Trinh.

“Based on Terayama’s autobiographical collection of tanka poetry, Pastoral: To Die in the Country entrenches itself in the framework of a child’s game—“those long games of hide and seek”—as a filmmaker seeks out his own sense of self within the faint sketches of his past, re-imagining the countryside of his adolescence. Fragmented and prismatic, Terayama’s surreal manifestation of childhood is a refracted mémoire of broken time, inhabited by carnival acts, provincial superstitions and a chorus of cloaked women. Shot in Terayama’s native Aomori against the backdrop of the haunted Mount Osore—a gateway to the underworld in Japanese mythology—Pastoral epitomizes Terayama’s unclassifiable brilliance. The film’s angura theatricality and phantasmagorical imagery are rich with symbolism, confronting the wounds of Showa’s imperial legacy, displays of the perverse amid sexual deviance and coupling desires, and the inevitable follies of youth” (Source: Japan Society).

Today from 11.00-12.00 hrs, a Film Studies student will have an acting rehearsal for a short film in the Flamingo Room!

Today from 18.00-21.00 hrs MediaMakers will host a screening of the latest Media Maker works in HVL/BuzzHouse’s Co-Working Space!

Today from 12.00-22.00 hrs, the team of Radio Swammerdam will have their weekly studio and office day at our Beehive Studio!

Today from 13.00-16.00 hrs, a Film Studies student will have an acting rehearsal for a short film in the Flamingo Room!

Today from 13.00-16.00 hrs, a Film Studies student will have an acting rehearsal for a short film in the Flamingo Room!

Today from 17:00-20.00 hrs, the UvA Film Club will continue their weekly screening in the Universiteitstheater! This week's film is Three Minutes: A Lengthening (Bianca Stigter, 2021), with a Q&A with the director, who will enter into in conversation with Michal Bilski.

Three Minutes: A Lengthening is a film essay that explores a surviving fragment of a family film shot in 1938 within a Jewish community in the town of Nasielsk in Poland, offering a poignant reflection on the Holocaust, the passage of time, and the deeper significance of film. The film is based on the book Three Minutes in Poland: Discovering a Lost World in a 1938 Family Film (2014) by American musician Glenn Kurtz, whose grandfather David shot the footage. The short three minutes of the clip are lengthened in many unpredictable ways, zooming in and out, focusing on the most minute details of the frame. These fragments raise as many questions as much as provide answers. The poetic narration of Helena Bonham Carter guides us through the stories of the strangers and invites us to engage with its mysteries.

This event is free of charge and open to all UvA students, alumni, and staff. Join us on Thursday March 13th from 17:00 at Universiteitstheater for a special screening of Three Minutes: A Lengthening (2021) by Dutch filmmaker, historian, journalist and writer Bianca Stigter. Stigter, who recently received an honorary doctorate from UvA, will be present during the event and engage in a Q&A session after the screening. Make sure to reserve your place for this event here!

Today from 13.00-16.00 hrs, a Film Studies student will have an acting rehearsal for a short film in the Flamingo Room!

Today from 15.30-19.30 hrs, HVL/BuzzHouse’s Flamingo Room will be used by Spotlight UvA, a LGBTQ student-run association focused on students from the English-speaking community and the Faculty of Humanities, who will be hosting a clothing swap event to celebrate Trans Visibility Day. Participants will be able to bring their own clothes to swap and Spotlight UvA will host a small DIY workshop where people will be able to personalise the clothes.

Today from 13.00-16.00 hrs, a Film Studies student will have an acting rehearsal for a short film in the Beehive Studio!

Today from 10.00-13.00 hrs, the Flamingo Room will be used for the fourth and final session of the Thesis Bootcamp for students of the dual Master Documentary & Fiction.

Today from 18:00-21.00 hrs, the UvA Film Club will continue their weekly screening in HVL/BuzzHouse’s Co-Working Space! This week's film is Concerning Violence (Göran Olsson, 2014), with an introduction by Bastian Baak. In Collaboration with Radical Organisation of Students in Amsterdam (ROSA) and UVA Intifada.

Concerning Violence depicts various decolonial movements and armed struggles in Africa during the mid-20th century. The documentary is based on archival footage from the 1960s and 1970s, primarily sourced from Swedish television archives. These visuals are paired with Frantz Fanon's work, 'The Wretched of the Earth' (1961), specifically the chapter titled "Concerning Violence.”, and is narrated by US artist and activist Lauryn Hill. It is structured as a series of nine chapters, each focusing on different aspects of anti-colonial resistance and the broader context of colonial violence, oppression, and exploitation.

Concerning Violence received critical acclaim for its bold storytelling and its ability to connect historical struggles to contemporary issues of race, power, and inequality. It was praised for its use of archival material and its unflinching portrayal of the harsh realities of colonialism. It excellently illustrates how decolonial struggles can turn to violence in order to reach their goals, and that it is often justified to use any means necessary to free the oppressed peoples of the world.

This documentary therefore teaches us a lesson about decolonial movements and the moral ambiguities of resistance. It also lets us reflect on how we view current struggles against imperialism, especially regarding Palestine. With the current events unfolding in Palestine, and the urgent need for international support of the Palestinian resistance movement against zionism, it seems like a good time to screen this documentary at the UVA Film Club.

About UvA Intifada

UvA Intifada is a student organisation, fighting for an academic boycott at the University of Amsterdam in solidarity with the Palestinian people. As students at the UvA, we are working to pressure the University of Amsterdam to cut all ties with zionist institutions, and divest from all zionist companies and their allies.

Join us on Wednesday, March 5 from 15.00-17.00 hrs for a seminar on the role of community television in the Caribbean, with a special focus on Gayelle the Caribbean, a groundbreaking community television station in the postcolonial twin-island nation state of Trinidad & Tobago. The seminar will explore the television history of the Caribbean's southernmost island nation and examine the opportunities and challenges of local production in a media landscape dominated by foreign and particularly US-American content.

PhD researcher Rebecca Robinson (ASCA) will explore how Gayelle has provided a platform for local content through talk shows, music programs, news, and variety shows since its launch in 2004. Through a series of interviews with its founding director, Errol Fabien, she has examined the station’s efforts to create alternative content in a media landscape dominated by foreign programming. At the same time, she has explored the economic and management challenges that led to Gayelle’s decline in the course of the 2010s. Errol Fabien will join online to respond to these findings and share his personal experiences as a pioneer in community television in the Caribbean. The seminar will be introduced by Emiel Martens, Assistant Professor in Postcolonial Media Studies and historian of the Caribbean audiovisual industries.

This seminar is organized by the ASCA Research Group Postcolonial Film Histories and Heritages and hosted by BuzzHouse. The seminar takes place on-site, but online attendance via Zoom is possible as well.  

Community TV in the Caribbean: Inside Errol Fabien’s Gayelle the Caribbean in Trinidad & Tobago

📅 Wednesday, March 5, 2025

🕒 15:00-17:00 hrs

📍 Flamingo Room, Buzzhouse/Humanities Venture Lab, Oudemanhuispoort (E-building)

👉 Please register for your on-site attendance in advance via Rebecca Robinson (r.r.robinson@uva.nl)

💻 Join the Zoom link for online attendance: https://uva-live.zoom.us/j/89199258793

Today from 18.00-21.00 hrs MediaMakers will host a workshop on in HVL/BuzzHouse’s Co-Working Space! The focus will be on AI Art Production. Dina Mohamed will be helping you develop your technical and creative skills when it comes to using generative AI software for visual media. Whether you’re a newbie or a new expert in the field, this will be a wonderful opportunity to practice your skills, share your knowledge, and develop a critical approach to using AI in your artistic practice.

Please sign up for the workshop through this link: https://forms.gle/rGidyLyyd19xiHnm8. If you are attending the workshop, please make sure to have Discord downloaded and set up on your computer before showing up.

Today from 10.00-13.00 hrs, the Flamingo Room will be used for the third session of the Thesis Bootcamp for students of the dual Master Documentary & Fiction.

Today from 17:00-20.00 hrs, the UvA Film Club will continue their weekly screening in HVL/BuzzHouse’s Co-Working Space! This week's film is The Vertical Ray of the Sun (dir. Tran Anh Hung, 2000), with an introduction by Gia Tue Trinh.

"I wanted my film to feel like a caress. It had to have a gentle smile floating through it, a sort of floating feeling." – Tran Anh Hung, in an interview with Trevor Johnston for the London Independent.

The final film in Tran Anh Hung’s Vietnam trilogy, The Vertical Ray of The Sun (2000), presents a multisensory, picture-perfect portrayal of summertime in Hanoi. The film follows stories of three sisters: Suong, Khanh, and Lien—two married, one single—as they navigate their familial and love life in the idle rhythm of daily happenings. Their intertwined lives unfold amidst the poetic beauty of Vietnam’s lush tropical landscape and ritualistic practices, yet beneath it lies the emotional turmoil of infidelity. With a hybrid approach to cinema shaped by his exposure to French cinema and deep attachment to his Vietnamese heritage, Tran Anh Hung crafts a rather nostalgic and dreamlike vision of Vietnam. Like a gentle touch of the summery rain on the skin, the meticulous mixture of languid pacing, adrift camera, and atmospheric soundscape generates a tactile assemblage of familial bonds, longing, and quiet emotional turbulence. This approach not only offers the audience a sensory comfort but also prompts critical reflection on cultural hybridity and the representation of femininity through the cinematic language of a male diasporic filmmaker.

Today from 12.00-16.00 hrs, a Film Studies student will have auditions for a short film in the Flamingo Room!

Today from 17:00-20:00 hrs the Flamingo Room will be used for a BoardGame night hosted by Maecenas, the study association of Cultural Studies and Global Arts, Culture & Politics at University of Amsterdam!

Today from 16.00-17.30 hrs BuzzHouse’s Beehive Studio will be used for an internship meeting of Africadelic, a non-profit organization operating from Paradiso that is committed to the programming and promotion of African and African diasporic cultural creativity, diversity and activism in the Netherlands through music, film and other performing arts.

Today from 10.00-13.00 hrs, the Flamingo Room will be used for the second session of the Thesis Bootcamp for students of the dual Master Documentary & Fiction.

Today from 17:00-20.00 hrs, the UvA Film Club will continue their weekly screening in HVL/BuzzHouse’s Co-Working Space! This week's film is Esthappan (dir. Govindan Aravindan, 1980), with an introduction by Nimaye Nambiar.

A mystical figure is summoned on the shores of a small fishing village in Kerala, India. He lies on the sharp rocks, which stitch the ocean’s water with a land and people that drink from it. Some call him Christ, others call him a thief; we see and hear of our (beloved) protagonist, Esthappan, through the testimonies of others. Govindan Aravindan’s eponymous film can’t help but linger on such an apparition, on a face textured by such restraint. As documentary seeps into fiction, Biblical deeds submerge in societal norms, and images coalesce with sound, Aravindan’s poetic style takes on a liquid form. A spiritual presence permeates the film, and like a tide, dwindles and intensifies with rhythmic persistence. Our Esthappan, and his eyes, especially his eyes, can only function on desire — a desire for preservation, of land and culture. Aravindan’s film remains an underrated gem of Malayali New Wave cinema, a must-watch for all!

Today from 18.30-20.00 hrs, a team of students from Soapbox will record a podcast in our Beehive Studio!

Today from 15:00-18:00 hrs the Flamingo Room will be used by Spotlight UvA to host a creative writing group!