1. Georg Henri Anton "Joris" Ivens was a Dutch documentary filmmaker.
20 Facts About Joris Ivens
1. 2.
Joris Ivens studied first at the Rotterdam School of Economics, before serving as a field artillery lieutenant in World War I In 1922 and 1923 he studied photochemistry in Germany.
3.
In 1929, Joris Ivens went to the Soviet Union after being invited to present a lecture there, and due to the success of The Bridge, he was invited to direct a film on a topic of his own choosing, which was the new industrial city of Magnitogorsk.
4.
Joris Ivens returned to the Soviet Union to make the film about Magnitogorsk, Song of Heroes in 1931 with music composed by Hanns Eisler.
5.
Joris Ivens met Ernest Hemingway and Ludwig Renn during the Spanish Civil War in 1936.
6.
From 1936 to 1945, Joris Ivens was based in the United States.
7.
Joris Ivens was better known for his anti-fascist and other propaganda films, including the feature-length documentary The Spanish Earth.
8.
Joris Ivens was suspected of being a friend of Mao Zedong and especially Zhou Enlai.
9.
In early 1943, Frank Capra hired Joris Ivens to supervise the production of Know Your Enemy: Japan for his US War Department film series Why We Fight.
10.
In 1946, commissioned to make a Dutch film about Indonesian independence, Joris Ivens resigned in protest over what he considered ongoing imperialism; the Dutch were in his view resisting decolonization.
11.
In 1965, the city of Rotterdam commissioned him to make a film about the port, which was meant to be a promotional film, but Joris Ivens got carte blanche.
12.
Joris Ivens was very happy with the result and even believed that it was his best film.
13.
At about the same time, from 1965 to 1970, Joris Ivens worked on two documentary films about North Vietnam during the war; he made 17e parallele: La guerre du peuple and he participated in the collective work Loin du Vietnam.
14.
Shortly before his death in 1989, Joris Ivens released the last of more than 40 films: Une histoire de vent.
15.
Joris Ivens was awarded the Lenin Peace Prize for the year 1967.
16.
Joris Ivens received the Order of the Netherlands Lion in January 1989.
17.
On 7 June 1989 Joris Ivens spoke to Radio Netherlands about his life and work in a wide-ranging interview.
18.
Joris Ivens was buried at the Cimetiere du Montparnasse in Paris.
19.
The Joris Ivens Award was awarded at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam from 1988, before being renamed the IDFA Award for Best Feature-Length Documentary between 2006 and 2009.
20.
The Loridan-Joris Ivens Award was initiated by Loridan-Joris Ivens to support emerging committed filmmakers "casting a sharp eye on the state of the world".