AMSTERDAM.- For Eye, the iconic British actor Tilda Swinton is making an exclusive, immersive exhibition featuring new works. This exhibition will explore her autobiography, using as a starting point the artistic collaborations that have been integral to her career. Swinton pushes the boundaries of the sometimes limited role of the actor, inviting visitors on a sensory journey that celebrates co-creation, the synergy between director and actor, and the influence of various art forms. This project pays tribute to the spirit of ‘renewal through connectivity’ that has defined Swinton’s remarkable career.

The Eye cinemas will screen a selection of short and feature-length films in which Swinton plays a leading role. Additionally, the programme will reexamine the work of Derek Jarman, who was pivotal to Swinton’s artistic development, and Joanna Hogg, a childhood friend with whom she has recently collaborated. The selection will also include masterclasses and ‘Eye on Art’ performances exploring her collaborations with Derek Jarman, Pedro Almodóvar and Apichatpong Weerasethakul, focusing on the dynamic between actor and director in collective artistic processes.

Nuri Bilge Ceylan
17 January – 1 June 2025

The new year opens with the first Dutch exhibition dedicated to celebrated Turkish filmmaker and photographer Nuri Bilge Ceylan. Eye will bring together Ceylan’s award-winning films and his landscape photography on Cinemascope format. Ceylan began his career as a photographer, and that background is clearly evident in the attention to composition, light and detail that define his filmmaking style.

The accompanying film programme will screen all nine of Ceylan’s feature films, including Winter Sleep, the Palme d’Or winner, many of which will be shown on 35mm from Eye collection. The programme will also include special events featuring Turkish-Dutch cultural figures reflecting on Ceylan’s work and screenings of films that have inspired him.

Feministisch Filmkollektief Cinemien
6 – 26 March 2025

Feministisch Filmkollektief Cinemien (Feminist Film Collective) was founded in 1975. The organisation played a pioneering role in advocating for gender equality in cinema and beyond, evolving into a leading international distributor of feminist films. Childcare, abortion, the sharing of household tasks and equal pay for doing equal work: the film pioneers of the previous feminist wave put all these themes on the agenda, where they have remained.

The Eye programme will include films by women from the Global South, classics by female directors, such as Jane Campion, as well as gay and lesbian films like Desert Hearts. It will also focus on ongoing relevant themes such as abortion, #MeToo, body positivity, gender roles, and queerness. During a series of specials with introductions, lectures and post-screening discussions, Eye will link today's feminism with that of the Cinemien era. The films from the Cinemien collection can also be seen on the Eye Film Player during this period.

Garrett Bradley, winner of Eye Art & Film Prize (to be confirmed)
14 June – 14 September 2025

Since 2015, Eye has awarded the Eye Art & Film Prize to an artist exploring the intersection of visual art and film. In 2025, the prize’s tenth anniversary will be celebrated with a summer exhibition featuring the work of US filmmaker and visual artist Garrett Bradley, winner of the Eye Prize. Work by the Oscar-nominated Bradley also features in the accompanying film programme, which spans feature films, documentaries and experimental genres. Her work addresses themes such as memory, race, class, family relationships, social justice and the socio-political history of the United States.

Summer programme: Akira Kurosawa
July – August 2025

Spring 2025 will see the release of Spike Lee’s remake of Akira Kurosawa’s High and Low, starring Denzel Washington. Few filmmakers have had as significant and enduring an influence on global cinema as Kurosawa, who introduced Japanese film to the West in 1951 with Rashomon, a prize-winner at the Venice Film Festival. The dialogue between East and West forms the central theme of this Eye programme, which will see the work of Kurosawa on the screen in the Netherlands again after more than 25 years, with restorations of his best-known films (including Seven Samurai, High and Low and Yojimbo) and complemented by introductions and screenings of films by directors who have been inspired by his work.

Series

This year, the ongoing film series will place a stronger emphasis on the analogue projection of celluloid films from the collection (ranging from 70mm to 16mm) and on programmes focused on new technologies and social issues, where Eye makes room for new talent.

Eye will explore future developments in film with Focus NL (April 2025), a virtual reality programme featuring six Dutch VR works selected for international festivals. The screenings will be followed by in-depth discussions with the creators, in collaboration with the VR distribution platform NU:Reality.

A highlight of Eye Classics will be The Lady with the Torch – Columbia 100 (April 2025), a programme organised in collaboration with the Locarno Film Festival to celebrate the centenary of the legendary Columbia Pictures film studio. During Hollywood’s Golden Age, film auteurs such as Frank Capra, Howard Hawks and George Stevens defined the studio’s identity.

Eye on Art, a programme series that explores the intersections of film and other art forms, will include a 2025 presentation of Eye’s project to conserve the work of visual artist Marijke van Warmerdam. Highlights include a marathon screening of 30 fragments of her work, paired with 30 speakers, and an evening dedicated to the representation of South America in It’s All True by Orson Welles, a project filmed in the 1940s but never completed.

Talent development
Year-round

The third generation of Programmers of the Future has begun, featuring trainee film programmers Kato van der Speeten, Alicia Abieyuwa Bergamelli and Humie Pourseyf. They will present their final programmes at Eye in July 2025.

The MovieZone talent development programme will kick off in January 2025 and host events throughout the year. They include KinoTalk, a regular evening where prominent filmmakers, writers, artists and musicians present their favourite film to a young audience and discuss their choices. Social Club is aimed at youths who want to develop skills in creating video campaigns, guided by experts from the film industry. Talentscreening is an initiative that allows young people to curate their own film evenings at Eye, under the supervision of experienced professionals.

Eye International Conference
25 – 28 May 2025

The theme of the 2025 Eye International Conference is ‘The Colour Fantastic Revisited: Across Global Histories, Theories, Aesthetics, and Archives’. This is a continuation of the ‘Colour Fantastic’ theme first explored in the 2015 edition, where the conference concentrated on silent film alone. In 2025, the conference will broaden its focus to the global study of colour use in film, spanning the silent era to modern cinema. Speakers from all around the world will present research on the challenges and opportunities of studying colour in film, with a particular emphasis on underrepresented geographic regions. This is Film! Film Heritage in Practice, the annual public lecture series (spring 2025), will align with the conference theme to further explore this subject.