Schedule 23 March:
14:00- 18:00
A Collision with the Past, 2021
Looping Audio Essay by Alina Lupu
18:00
Screenings of Kraaienest Blijft and Hotel Mokum
18:45 - 19:45
Conversation between Yannesh Meijman, Wouter Stroet and Alina Lupu
RSVP required: there is a limited capacity for this program, please reserve a spot by mailing reservations@deappel.nl.
A Collision with the Past, 2021
Audio Essay by Alina Lupu
The audio essay was ignited by an invitation from The Input Party’s collaboration with the Institute of Social History in Amsterdam (IISG). During the visit to the IISG Alina found and was captivated by pictures of the squat De Kalenderpanden. Commissioned by Ja Ja Ja Nee Nee Nee radio, under the curatorial guidance of Radna Rumping, she had the support to embark on a research that would take more than a year. The piece would later be broadcast under the Ja Ja Ja Nee Nee Nee series 'Near Histories'. The Kalenderpanden, is a former squat located in the East of Amsterdam. The squat was in operation between 1996 and 2000, and, after its eviction, it was turned into luxury lofts. The piece uses archive material that the squatters from that time made available: a documented timeline of both the squatting and the eviction. It also tries to touch upon how the practice of squatting changed in the past decades, since the 2010 squatting ban, and weaves in and out of how one can still get access to the Kalenderpanden building, two decades after. While putting together the piece, between November 2020 and November 2021, there has been a resurgence of squatting as a housing practice in Amsterdam. Kalenderpanden is linked to the newly squatted Hotel Mokum as well as a building on Spuistraat 59 and one on Ringdijk 8, both squatted by the Anarcha Feminist Group Amsterdam.
You can listen to the audio essay here
Kraaienest Blijft, 2022
Film by Wouter Stroet, 5 min., Dutch/English with English subtitles
Through photogrammetric imagery, 'Kraaiennest Blijft' explores the structures of a seemingly abandoned Grand Café in the Dutch city of Groningen. The piece assembles shattered interiors of – at first sight – unused spaces. Fragments of a conversation with former homeless students reveal that the property is actually far from vacant, and show that there is an alternative.
Hotel Mokum, 2023
Film by dir. Yannesh Meijman, 30 min., Dutch with English subtitles
Hotel Mokum is a documentary about a collective that squatted the abandoned Hotel Marnix in the heart of Amsterdam on October 16th, 2021. Over six weeks the collective transformed the hotel into a home, a self-proclaimed free space and an oasis in a city smothered by hypergentrification. At the height of its popularity, Hotel Mokum got evicted under the guise of fire safety. The story of Hotel Mokum is rooted in protest: against both the housing and cost of living crises, as well as the criminalization of squatting in 2010 that led to the eviction of over 300 squats in Amsterdam alone. The film combines documentary footage, archival materials, and constructed scenes to create a complex and intimate portrait of a hopeful collective and the city they are working to reclaim.
Alina Lupu was born in Bacau, Romania, in 1985 and since 2012, living and working in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. “Alina Lupu is fighting for a fairer world in her work. She consistently examines the ways in which conditions are set for participating in the economy, or how the economy is shaped, and who is thereby included or excluded, and as a consequence risks marginalization. These are topics of great importance for workers determination at a time when direct transactions seem to become more accessible, but in reality also ever more elusive.”
Yannesh Meijman is a self-taught director, producer, and editor born and raised in Amsterdam. His youthful socio-poetic work is driven by a yearning for community, urban resistance, and dreams. Through subjective storytelling, glitching signals, and embracing cracks, he makes films both as a critique and ode to Amsterdam. His debut documentary film Hotel Mokum, produced by HALAL & Radio Voorwaarts, will have its world premiere during IDFA in the Frontlight section.
Yannesh’s earlier work “Geen Plek” (2022) was selected for the Go Short Film Festival. As a producer, his film “Incendios” (2021) was selected for the Netherlands Film Festival and the Festival International du Film d’Aubagne. Moreover, he is the co-founder of Radio VoorÂwaarts – an art collective and platform that showcases underÂground and interÂdisciplinary arts & music, with a particular interest in alternative subÂcultures and their preÂcarious place in an increasingly hostile urban environment.