Plaat, Zwartjes and Meter all made their first films in the sixties and are now still active. Inevitable as it may seem to reproduce reality in a photographic medium as film, the veterans Meter, Plaat and Zwartjes seem to resist just that. Plaat calls his films “exorcisms,” Meter talks about “a proposal to start perceiving reality differently,” and Zwartjes says, “the only useful answer to the humbug around you is art.” Their films address the viewer directly, without interference by word or narrative. With images they name the unnameable. Their instruments are the camera and the splicer. Their material is the celluloid. Their approach is intuitive. They love their medium. You can get to know them intimately by watching their productions after forty years of filmmaking. The styles of these three authors are as different as their  personalities…

The three retrospectives on the Impakt Festival are the first three issues of HOLLANDSE MEESTERS / DUTCH MASTERS, a series of programs with Dutch experimental film classics. The Filmmuseum has preserved the films as part of the three year project ‘de Collectie Nederland van de Experimentele Film’ and made special new prints with support of the Mondriaan Foundation.