Utrecht Nederlands Film Festival (Dutch Movie Festival)

Every year the Dutch Film Festival is held in Utrecht.

The opening and closing is mostly is the Stadschouwburg but the organization is hosted in the old building of De Winkel van Sinkel.

The building started after a long preparation in 1837 based on the design of architect Pieter Adams (1778-1846).

The most remarkable part of the design is the four big women statues in Greek robes.

Utrecht Roman Wall, The Technique

If you go to Rots Maatwerk, and follow the path : Home/Projecten/picture Lichttechniek/Markering Castellum Domplein Utrecht, you find information about the technique behind the marks (alas in Dutch, but the pictures give also information).

On picture 1 the mark at the Domplein is still under construction.

The mark in the Servetstraat, picture 2, is already finished. You see the mist too.

Utrecht Roman Wall, The Opening Mark 3

The Domplein and the Domtower look like an oase of peace on a Sunday morning.

You hardly believe that in the year 47 a fortress was built by the Romans when they navigated on the Rhine and arrived at a dry area, where now the Dom Place is.

Here they built their fortress, called a castellum.

Studies found out where this castellum was exactly situated and marks of light and mist show the outlines of this castellum.

This night the third mark was officially opened at the Korte Nieuwstraat. The other two marks are situated at the Domstraat and Servetstraat.

It's really strange when you walk in these streets and suddenly the earth seemes to open and "steam and green light" come out from a crack in the street.

By led light the colour also can turn to blue or pink.

Utrecht Art VBMO

Seven VBMO schools showed their best art works at an exhibition in the Utrecht Town Hall from 4-26 March (2009).



The exhibition was called “Kunstig VBMO” ( Artistic VBMO)

(a VBMO school is literally, "preparatory middle-level vocational education" and lasts four years, from the age of twelve to sixteen)

Four pupils were from the Art Class Central College.

The Central College pays a lot of attention to art education, and has a special Art Class in which 13 pupils are educated four hours a week in drawing, painting, and other visual arts.

Here talents are discovered and developed and encouraged.

The winner was Adbdelbari Talibi, pupil of the Globe College with “Stadsgezicht" (City View) below on this site.

I prefer the painting above but of whom is it ???. (mind out the 5 FC Utrecht weapons below :))

Utrecht Homage to Annie Brouwer

It was around 1953 when the local government of Utrecht decided to renovate the wharfs
of the Nieuwe-gracht and Oudegracht.
Old gas lamps should be put back in the street scene.
They were carried on a “Collar Stone” (Kraagsteen or console) and decorated one by one with a sculpture.
More about it in a future chapter in this blog.

Today the loco-mayor unveiled a sculpture dedicated to the former Mayor of Utrecht Annie Brouwer-Korf, who was mayor between 2 July 2007 and 20 December 2007.
It was a present of the members of the local government in honour of her departure as mayor.

See "goodbye meeting" speeches, during a special meeting of the local government, here (page 9, last two paragraphs -alas in Dutch only).

The sculpture is created by Koos Boomstra who has successfully expressed Mrs. Brouwer as she was:
A bit severe lady by which quality she maintained in all kind of situations that came up in local politic. In the background a brewery scene, for Mrs. Brouwer's name means ''brewer".

In the past you could also find about 20 breweries in the neighbourhood of this part of the Oude Gracht.

The console is placed at Oude Gracht at the wharf 328.

on the pictures: taking away the red-white Utrecht flag, the sculpture with a.o. ginkgo leaves and platinum mayor chain, and Annie Brouwer between Koos Boomstra and loco-mayor Harm Janssen

Utrecht Utrecht for Starters

On the warf of the Oude Gracht below nr. 36 you can read the poem called:
"Utrecht for starters".




It asks you, to learn to understand the city, by feeling it's history with your own hands.

Select a good evening,
walk along the channels and look
how the light in the houses disappears.
Put than your hand on a wall.
Here the eldest stone is right.

The poem is of the, in March 2009 appointed, first City Poet Ingmar Heytze. He also published a book, with the same title as the poem, in which he selected 125 poems about the city.
A city poet is appointed - by the local city government- for two years and receives € 5.000,- p/y.

Utrecht Feest der Muzen (Party of the Muses)

On the lawn (grasveld) in front of the Stads-schouwburg at Lepelenburg is a statue,
called Feest der Muzen (party of the three Muses).

The statue is made by Joop Hekman in 1959 so this year it is exactly 50 years old !

From April on, the fountain around the statue is working and during hot days I was always jealous seeing the ladies being splashed with cold fresh water in the shadow of the tree while I was dusty and sweating.

The three Muses are three out of nine muses (nine daughters of Zeus) of the Greek mythology.
They are called Thalia (muse of comedy), Melpomene (muse of tragedy) and Tersichore (muse of dance). So the place of the statue near the theatre is really well over thought.

Utrecht Cultural Sunday 15 March

Utrecht started the Cultural Sundays (N/E) on the initiative of Groen Links (political – green- party).
The idea was to offer a counterbalance (tegenwicht) to the commercial shopping Sundays, to offer the Utrecht population on regular basis art and culture and to enliven (verlevendigen) the city centre.
If possible once a month there are cultural festivities in the city of different character.

This Sunday was more or less in the middle of the “Boekenweek” (Book week), in which the Dutch literature is highlighted. The theme of the Boekenweek 2009 was: “The literary Zoo”, which meant special attention to literature that refers to animals.

One of the many events was an interview at the town hall of the mayor Aleid Wolfsen with Dick Bruna, (N/E and more on the other mentioned sites)famous all over the world with his children’s books Nijntje, but for me more famous for the design of the many, many book covers of the Zwarte Beertjes pocket books. (here examples of his designs for the Simenon book covers)

Dick Bruna was an enthusiastic story-teller so the mayor had an easy task :).
Nevertheless he asked a lot of interesting questions about the way Dick Bruna started a book and what’s going on in his mind during the writing process.

Most of his ideas came up during his bicycle trips from home to his studio v.v. Dick Bruna said.
Then he sees a lot of inspiration for his books. (By the way, I often see him on his bike passing the street in which I live). He advised the audience at the end to use the bicycle as often as possible :).

He also talked about the Bruna Museum, his passion for perfection, the control on translations of his books, the efforts to make everythin as simple and clear as possible ("less is more") and many other points of interest.

At the end of the interview he answered questions from the audience- even in English with the same ease as in Dutch- and read one of his books: Vogel Piet (Bird Peter). After every page he showed the audience the drawing that belonged to it. It was a very pleasant morning.

Utrecht Hendrik Marsman

Hendrik Marsman
* Zeist, 30 September 1899 - † Het Kanaal, 21 June 1940

Marsman is one of the important poets of the Dutch literature.

Besides poet he was also a lawyer in Utrecht.

Against the wall of his office at Domstraat 8 is a shield on which Marsman wrote about the nature of the Utrecht people:

“No style, but the more character the town does have
A hard and narrow minded wilfilness
That fancies itself the yardstick of all things”

The most well known poem that he wrote about Holland is Herinnering aan Holland (1936) "Memory of Holland" (links D/E) which describes the Dutch landscape and the struggle against the water.

Utrecht Walk Of Fame

In Utrecht the Netherlands Film Festival will take place (in 2009) from September 23 up to October 2. One of the official events is the disclosure (onthulling) of the gilt bronze tile in the Walk of Fame in the Vinkenburgstraat.

For that a red carpet is rolled out. On the place where the tile is situated, a square is cut out and later placed back with double sided adhesive tape. The intention is that the “star” takes the square piece of carpet away and….tararaaaa!!! sees the tile, glittering in the sun.

Unfortunately it sometimes happens that the piece of carpet is taken away but..... the adhesive tapes still stick on the tiles so that, at the moment suprême, someone quickly has to remove the tape in order to save the embarrassing situation.
The tile above is the tile of Carice van Houten who played a magnificent role in the film Zwartboek (Black book), released in September 2006.

Utrecht Ambition

Monday, 2nd February, the Rabo Bank and the Algemeen Dagblad had organized the last of the four debates about the future of Utrecht.

The question was: What is the ambition of Utrecht (at the moment) and what should it be.

Top representatives from the culture, sport, science and education fields debated with 3 aldermen (wethouders), the audience and last but not least with the sympathetic mayor of Utrecht. Alas the representatives merely talked for their own field of interest.

In general everybody agreed that Utrecht has a lot to offer, but is not able to show it to the world, among others since the nature of the Utrechters is: “Act normal, that is crazy enough", ... ( This proves that I am not really a 100% Utrechter :).
After the debate we short talked with the mayor who recognizes us little by little and some other interesting people.

By the way, these debates are important, for in 2013 Utrecht celebrates the anniversary of the signing of The Peace of Utrecht (Vrede van Utrecht) of 1713.

In 2018 Utrecht is nominated for the European Cultural Capital of the year 2018...
More about it in one of the blogs that will follow.