Film critics and film studies scholars typically define an art film as possessing "formal qualities that mark them as different from mainstream Hollywood films". These qualities can include (among other elements) a sense of social realism; an emphasis on the authorial expressiveness of the director; and a focus on the thoughts, dreams, or motivations of characters, as opposed to the unfolding of a clear, goal-driven story.
Location shooting often takes place close to the studio; in Hollywood films, this region is delineated in union agreements and is known as the studio zone. Many location shoots, however, are far from the home studio, sometimes on the other side of the world. In these instances, location shooting can provide significant economic development benefits to the area in which they are shot. Cast and crew heavily rely upon local facilities such as catering, transportation, and accommodations. A film that becomes a blockbuster hit can introduce movie audiences around the world to a visually breathtaking location that they were previously unaware of, as the Lord of the Rings trilogy did for New Zealand. This can boost tourism for years or even decades.
A project to perceive space in a different way. High up in the tower your perception of the surrounding polder and the salt marsh landscape near Ternaard in the Netherlands bends into a total experience. Made out of wood the tower confirms the natural beauty of the environment. Climbing the stairs, elevating from a sheep to a bird’s-eye perspective, you circle through the qualities of a unique landscape. Camera Batavia is an invitation to witness ourselves in the totality of space. Sitting beneath the convex mirror you are able to look in all directions at the same time. A confusing and new experience that exceeds all expectations.
About Arjen Boerstra
As a memory experiment and to relive old fascinations, I reconstructed the attic from my youth. Personal memories, looking back, (re)discovering and a growing interest in historical developments became the centre of my quest. I discovered the possibility to share my explorations and conclusions within staged situations. From this perspective I create my work.
Unlike other motion picture film stock of the time, Polavision film reproduces color by the additive method, like the much earlier Dufaycolor film. In essence, it consists of a black-and-white emulsion on a film base covered with microscopically narrow red, green and blue filter stripes. It was instant in the sense that it could be very quickly and easily developed in the Polavision processing unit after it was removed from the Polavision camera, ready for viewing in only a few minutes.
A biographical film or biopic is a film that dramatizes the life of an actual person or group of people. Such films show the life of a historical person and the central character's real name is used. They differ from docudrama films and historical drama films in that they attempt to comprehensively tell a single person's life story or at least the most historically important years of their lives.
