IJdijk
Aug 01, 1965a man with a moped and groups of boys (one in particular) are in conflict, which sometimes turns into erotic play.
Barbara Meter
Recently added
Home Movies 1971-81
Jan 01, 1985
The dutchified Hungarian Joszef Katús returns, after a months-long absence, to Amsterdam on 29 April 1966. The arrival of the Provos changed a great deal in the Dutch capital. The film follows Katús, mostly roaming the streets, in a loose documentary style. The events are set against the backdrop of four national occasions - The Queen's Birthday, Labour Day, Liberation Day and Remembrance Day.
Drama
...And a Table
Jan 01, 1971A man and a woman sit in front of a window and eat breakfast. Through the window, we see the countryside. During the day, they remain seated at the table. The settings, light, and depth of field change: slowly we learn the vocabulary of the medium. In the final shots, the camera is reflected in the windows, and we see lights being cleared away. The film itself, and not the man and woman at the table, has become the subject of the film.
Songs for Four Hands
Aug 25, 1970A man and a woman converse wordlessly. An essential film dialogue. The accompanying sound was created by playing a chord from a Mahler symphony through two 'reel-to-reel' tape recorders and editing it.
Retour d'enfance
Jan 01, 1969Photos and film footage are edited, damaged, scratched, and painted. The original images are only vaguely recognizable, as if they are already part of our ‘tainted’ memory. The film was made in response to the death of Janis Joplin.
Jongens, jongens, wat een meid
Jan 01, 1965
Offices
Aug 26, 2003
Aanraking
Aug 27, 2008A wordless experimental collage of impressions and moods. Grainy fragments of landscapes, flakes whirl in the wind. Fog and mist, shadows of people in the city and by the water… Silhouettes that fade and turn into pure light and shadow until we discern the specks and scratches on the film strip itself. Sometimes, for a fraction of a second, a face, a person. A film as a memory that eludes us.
Ariadne
Aug 27, 2005The constant movement of the wheels, threads, sprockets, feet and hands suggests restlessness, and this is paralleled by the soundtrack. The unknown woman could be Gretchen from Faust, hopelessly in love or Ariadne who gave Theseus the thread to find his way out of labyrinth or perhaps she is one of the fates, weaving destiny… Enlarged from Super-8 to 35mm, the film is very grainy, in itself an homage to the medium of film which is also emphasized by the depiction of all kinds of turning machines, both in image and sound.
Documentary
Ariadne
Aug 27, 2005The constant movement of the wheels, threads, sprockets, feet and hands suggests restlessness, and this is paralleled by the soundtrack. The unknown woman could be Gretchen from Faust, hopelessly in love or Ariadne who gave Theseus the thread to find his way out of labyrinth or perhaps she is one of the fates, weaving destiny… Enlarged from Super-8 to 35mm, the film is very grainy, in itself an homage to the medium of film which is also emphasized by the depiction of all kinds of turning machines, both in image and sound.
Documentary
Ariadne
Aug 27, 2005The constant movement of the wheels, threads, sprockets, feet and hands suggests restlessness, and this is paralleled by the soundtrack. The unknown woman could be Gretchen from Faust, hopelessly in love or Ariadne who gave Theseus the thread to find his way out of labyrinth or perhaps she is one of the fates, weaving destiny… Enlarged from Super-8 to 35mm, the film is very grainy, in itself an homage to the medium of film which is also emphasized by the depiction of all kinds of turning machines, both in image and sound.
Documentary
From the Exterior
Aug 25, 1970Barbara Meter's first experimental film. From outside, the handheld camera surreptitiously peers at life in the living rooms of nocturnal Amsterdam. Shots of lamp shades, plants, chairs, faces and pets. A poodle stares out of the window.
Songs for Four Hands
Aug 25, 1970A man and a woman converse wordlessly. An essential film dialogue. The accompanying sound was created by playing a chord from a Mahler symphony through two 'reel-to-reel' tape recorders and editing it.
Penelope
Aug 25, 1994Sculptures for a Windless Space
Aug 25, 1995A short film with shots of sculptures by Anneke Walvoort. The materiality of film plays an important role: visible grain, flashes of colour, unexpected camera movements.
Documentary
Convalescing
Aug 27, 2000“Convalescing, when you don't have to participate in the world. Time to read, to dream, to look - the blue, the light of the television, the blue, the book, the patterns the light, the blue. Time to appreciate how much that really is.”
Documentary
Appearances
Aug 27, 2000An image of early twentieth century Germany rises from a collage of family photographs and landscapes. Meter used the photo albums of her parents, who had to flee Hitler's Germany. The shots alternately exude warmth and detachment.
Quay
Aug 27, 2003Ariadne
Aug 27, 2005The constant movement of the wheels, threads, sprockets, feet and hands suggests restlessness, and this is paralleled by the soundtrack. The unknown woman could be Gretchen from Faust, hopelessly in love or Ariadne who gave Theseus the thread to find his way out of labyrinth or perhaps she is one of the fates, weaving destiny… Enlarged from Super-8 to 35mm, the film is very grainy, in itself an homage to the medium of film which is also emphasized by the depiction of all kinds of turning machines, both in image and sound.
Documentary
Stretto
Aug 27, 2005Portraits
Aug 27, 1972Faces pass by in quickly edited, split-screen recordings. A 'structuralist' film in which the film material itself plays an important role. Grain, scratches and flickering give the film texture. The music is by Steve Reich.
Aanraking
Aug 27, 2008A wordless experimental collage of impressions and moods. Grainy fragments of landscapes, flakes whirl in the wind. Fog and mist, shadows of people in the city and by the water… Silhouettes that fade and turn into pure light and shadow until we discern the specks and scratches on the film strip itself. Sometimes, for a fraction of a second, a face, a person. A film as a memory that eludes us.
Aap, Noot, Mies
Jan 01, 1963Little Stabs
Jan 01, 2011Familie Nasdalko aan zee
Jan 01, 1969Nooit varen boten in de bergen
Jan 01, 2002People embarking on a small boat - the bustle and confusion of it. A walk and a song. A villiage square, men with coffee, women with children, and old man by himself. A painterly use of film grain.
Nachtlicht
Dec 31, 2022Documentary
Andante Ma Non Troppo
Jan 01, 1988After eight years of feminist activism, ANDANTE MA NON TROPPO was Meters’ first step back towards experimental film. The camera observes a street corner from a window in Meters’ house. Turkish women meet on the sidewalk outside. Children play, dogs walk by. The shots repeat, just as the actions recorded reoccur every day.
Departure on Arrival
Oct 26, 1996An attempt to communicate the feeling of evaporation, of disappearing and slipping away of the fragile material which is called time.
Distance to Nearby
Jan 01, 1982A very impressive film is Barbara Meter's 'Distance to Nearby.' The film is a dramatic reconstruction of memory. The memory of the alienation and solitude of a (half) Jewish child -the filmmaker- while in hiding, dramatized in restrained but touching imagery. For instance the looking through corridors and rooms, which should have given the feeling of protection. D. Ouwendijk, Trouw, 1982
Greece, to me
Jan 01, 2001Often the images are held for awhile and then left to themselves - only to fade out just as they begin to move. For me this enhances the feeling of memory - and the sensation that when you leave a place you know that everything is still there, without you. And so the film is both elongated and fragmented.
Loutron
Jan 01, 2009A day in the life of an old Ottoman bath with the bath itself as the main character -- from dawn till dusk, where the light, the mirroring in the water and the visitors figure alongside the protagonist .
Whether or not you believe
Jan 01, 2007They can be seen in the whole of Greece: the small and humble buildings along the roadside dedicated to a saint. Often a burning candle illuminates the colourful interior. Most of them are erected to the memory of a beloved, killed in a car accident, others because someone has been miraculously saved. They are the evidence of a daily devotion and are called 'proskynitaria' or 'ikonismata'. The older ones many have been built becuase somebody had a significant dream on the spot, or to indicate the place of a former church or perhaps to protect the entrance of a house against ill luck. Each 'proskynitari' has its own story. This documentary tells us some of these stories and shows an importnat aspect of how the Greek people deal with death and what role religion plays in everyday life.
In Passing - The Party
Jan 01, 1985The film has elements of documentary, narrative and avant-garde. In a big house a party is taking place. People arrive and greet each other-encounters, some dancing, flirtations, a moment of drama. The camera is looking while slowly approaching the lit windows as if someone wanting to take part.
Schermerhoorn
May 01, 1967A Young man is interested in the girl next door, but also discovers that he is not insensitive to a boy, with whom he has dress-up parties in the attic and plays in an old bunker in the dunes.
Bis an den Himmel und noch viel mehr
Jan 01, 2015In her recent film Up to the Sky and Much Much More, Meter uses letters sent to her by her father during World War II to provide the film's narration, while interviews with her mother expand on his opposition to fascism — as well as to constraints of any kind, including the bonds of family — and his eventual conscription to the Eastern front. Remarkably, her father's epistolary accounts of his daily life as a soldier also include fantastical watercolour illustrations of his travels, which Meter incorporates to movingly amplify the emotional resonance of a father-daughter bond made fraught by distance and war.
...And a Table
Jan 01, 1971A man and a woman sit in front of a window and eat breakfast. Through the window, we see the countryside. During the day, they remain seated at the table. The settings, light, and depth of field change: slowly we learn the vocabulary of the medium. In the final shots, the camera is reflected in the windows, and we see lights being cleared away. The film itself, and not the man and woman at the table, has become the subject of the film.
...And a Table
Jan 01, 1971A man and a woman sit in front of a window and eat breakfast. Through the window, we see the countryside. During the day, they remain seated at the table. The settings, light, and depth of field change: slowly we learn the vocabulary of the medium. In the final shots, the camera is reflected in the windows, and we see lights being cleared away. The film itself, and not the man and woman at the table, has become the subject of the film.
...And a Table
Jan 01, 1971A man and a woman sit in front of a window and eat breakfast. Through the window, we see the countryside. During the day, they remain seated at the table. The settings, light, and depth of field change: slowly we learn the vocabulary of the medium. In the final shots, the camera is reflected in the windows, and we see lights being cleared away. The film itself, and not the man and woman at the table, has become the subject of the film.
...And a Table
Jan 01, 1971A man and a woman sit in front of a window and eat breakfast. Through the window, we see the countryside. During the day, they remain seated at the table. The settings, light, and depth of field change: slowly we learn the vocabulary of the medium. In the final shots, the camera is reflected in the windows, and we see lights being cleared away. The film itself, and not the man and woman at the table, has become the subject of the film.
Songs for Four Hands
Aug 25, 1970A man and a woman converse wordlessly. An essential film dialogue. The accompanying sound was created by playing a chord from a Mahler symphony through two 'reel-to-reel' tape recorders and editing it.
Honderd beledigingen per dag
Jan 01, 1970Documentary
