Two king penguins beak to beak in front of a crowd of brown chicks

199880 minDocumentary

Amsterdam via Amsterdam

Name: Amsterdam via Amsterdam
Genre: Documentary
Released: 1998
Duration: 80 min

Four centuries ago Willem Barentsz sailed north and Cornelis de Houtman sailed south from Amsterdam, opening the way to two islands that bear the city's name, in Spitsbergen and in the southern Indian Ocean. Rob Rombout and Rogier van Eck, both with their roots in Amsterdam, follow their tracks. Their expedition is of another kind, but their doubts measure up to the daring of those navigators. Between the polar ice and the southern wind, the city comes into view as a triptych.

Press

“A film for two voices, intimate, but also lashed by the wind of the open sea.”

« Un film à deux voix, intimiste, mais aussi fouetté par le vent du large. »

René Begon, Le Matin, 1999 · Our translation.

“A multilingual travel notebook where water is everywhere, a journey of initiation, an urban and maritime chronicle, a dialogue of images and sounds”

« Carnet de route multilingue où l’eau est omniprésente, voyage initiatique, chronique urbaine et maritime, dialogue visuel et sonore »

Dominique Legrand, Le Soir, 1999 · Our translation.

1999Amsterdam, devant nous, derrière nous, AmsterdamDominique Legrand, Le Soir · PDF ↗
1999Prendre le large à quarante ansRené Begon, Le Matin · PDF ↗
2006Allemaal AmsterdammenNiels Wisman, Ons Amsterdam · PDF ↗
2022Stepping out of the frame to savour lifeMarc-Emmanuel Mélon, The Mise en Scène of the Real, Yellow Now, provisional translation · PDF ↗

Photographs

A cameraman in a red and black parka at a camera on a tripod on snow, dark mountains and two figures in the distance — 1998Norway, Spitsbergen, Willy Stassen

A man in a red hooded parka and sunglasses on stony ground, a film camera beside him — 1998Norway, Spitsbergen, Rob Rombout

A man at a camera on a tripod on a ship’s deck, blue water with ice floes and a small red boat, snowy mountains far off — 1998Norway, Spitsbergen, Willy Stassen

Two men in red and blue parkas standing side by side on a stony shore — 1998Norway, Spitsbergen, Rob Rombout and Rogier van Eck

A cameraman filming an officer in a dark uniform on the deck of a ship, the sea behind — 1998Norway, Spitsbergen

Three men in parkas close together on a stony shore, the sea and a low coast behind — 1998Norway, Spitsbergen, Willy Stassen, Rob Rombout and Rogier van Eck

A man in a red and white striped shirt and braces beside a camera, a tall ship in the harbour behind — 1998Netherlands, Amsterdam, Bart van der Wiel on the Proteus

A wooden board painted “PROTEUS Schellingwoude 160 ton” on a boat’s wheelhouse with red geraniums — 1998Netherlands, Amsterdam, the Proteus

A man in a striped shirt on the deck of a barge, the Amsterdam waterfront under big clouds behind — 1998Netherlands, Amsterdam, Bart van der Wiel on the Proteus

A smiling woman with headphones and a man in tinted glasses and a red and blue jacket inside a helicopter — 1998France, TAAF, Amsterdam Island, Griet van Reeth

About thirty men posing in rows on a path between white gateposts, dense green trees behind — 1998France, TAAF, Amsterdam Island, the wintering team

Two men with a film camera on the stern deck of a ship, the open sea and the white superstructure behind — 1998Southern Indian Ocean, Samuel Dravet and Rogier van Eck

Technical sheet

Title: Amsterdam via Amsterdam
Year: 1998
Runtime: 80 min
Countries: Belgium
Languages: Dutch, French, English
Production: Asap, with CBA, RTBF, Image Création and Triangle 7
Availability: CBA, Brussels · on request
Versions: 80′ in the credits published in Mélon 2022, which dates the shoot to 1998 and the finished film to 2004 (pp. 123, 168). The co-producer CBA lists the film under 1998 and also gives a 54′ version. Rob Rombout's CV records a 40′ work in progress, 1997. Video edition: Heure Exquise!, 2004.

Direction: Rob Rombout, Rogier van Eck
Image: Samuel Dravet, Willy Stassen, Louis-Philippe Capelle
Sound: Griet van Reeth
Editing: Rogier van Eck, Rudi Maerten
Music: Hughes Maréchal

Prizes

2005Best Foreign Film, Route 66 festival, Springfield
2006Silver Remi, 39th WorldFest, Houston

Selections

2007Tiburon film festival