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Jos de Putter
Feature documentaries  
  • A way to B
  • See no evil
  • Solo; out of a dream
  • Beyond the game
  • How many roads
  • Alias Kurban Saïd
  • Dans Grozny dans
  • The making of a new empire
  • Solo; the law of the favela
  • It's been a lovely day
Mid-lengthTelevisionCreative ProducerVisual artsAwardsPublicationsContact
Jos de Putter
Feature documentaries  
  • A way to B
  • See no evil
  • Solo; out of a dream
  • Beyond the game
  • How many roads
  • Alias Kurban Saïd
  • Dans Grozny dans
  • The making of a new empire
  • Solo; the law of the favela
  • It's been a lovely day
Mid-lengthTelevisionCreative ProducerVisual artsAwardsPublicationsContact
  • Jos de Putter
    Feature documentaries  
    • A way to B
    • See no evil
    • Solo; out of a dream
    • Beyond the game
    • How many roads
    • Alias Kurban Saïd
    • Dans Grozny dans
    • The making of a new empire
    • Solo; the law of the favela
    • It's been a lovely day
    Mid-lengthTelevisionCreative ProducerVisual artsAwardsPublicationsContact
    Jos de Putter
    Feature documentaries  
    • A way to B
    • See no evil
    • Solo; out of a dream
    • Beyond the game
    • How many roads
    • Alias Kurban Saïd
    • Dans Grozny dans
    • The making of a new empire
    • Solo; the law of the favela
    • It's been a lovely day
    Mid-lengthTelevisionCreative ProducerVisual artsAwardsPublicationsContact
    Jos de Putter
    Feature documentaries  
    • A way to B
    • See no evil
    • Solo; out of a dream
    • Beyond the game
    • How many roads
    • Alias Kurban Saïd
    • Dans Grozny dans
    • The making of a new empire
    • Solo; the law of the favela
    • It's been a lovely day
    Mid-lengthTelevisionCreative ProducerVisual artsAwardsPublicationsContact
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      It's been a lovely day

      (1993)

    • Year: 1993
      Format: 16 mm
      Runtime: 1 hr 10 min (70 min)

      Production:
      Jos de Putter / Stichting Dieptescherpte

       

      It's Been a Lovely Day is a portrait of a traditional Dutch farmer's family, made by their son. The documentary focuses on the last year of the parents' work on the farm that has been passed on from one generation to the next for more than a century. Now, they will retire without a successor.

        

      The film observes, without any explanatory comment, but in an outspoken cinematographic style, a traditional way of life that is disappearing throughout Europe. The film begins at 6 a.m. on January 1st, 1992, and ends in a foggy and lonely landscape twelve months later. In between, it shows the last harvest, the now anachronistic choreography of an old farmer on his land, the typical slow conversations about the weather, and the silent acceptance of changing times.

      "A riveting study in the purest documentary tradition" is how Variety described de Putter's look at the final year of his own parents' farm, but the film's connection between landscape and art is best described by its opening dedication: "For my father, who made me love the land, and my mother, who made me love the cinema."

        

      Beginning with his father's before-dawn cup of coffee on January 1, 1992, de Putter records a calendar year of plantings and harvests, winter snows and autumn lights, quiet conversations, and those moments when the only sound is from the wind, the only movement from the clouds above, or the harvests below.

        

      It's Been a Lovely Day is a portrait of a fading way of life, but another feature is those famous Dutch rays of light, with farmers in dawn's near-darkness, or trees swaying in summer breezes, as painterly as any Rembrandt or Van Gogh.

        

      Awards:

      City of Utrecht Prize, 1993 (best debut of the year)

      Chosen as best Dutch film of the year by readers of the Volkskrant and association of Dutch Film critics, 1994 .Chosen as one of the 16 best Dutch films in film history, part of official Dutch Film Heritage, 2007

       

      Festivals:

      a.o. IFFRotterdam, New York MOMA, Cinéma du Réel Paris, Göteborg, Los Angeles, Sydney, Johannesburg, Teheran, National Art Gallery Washington, San Francisco, Pacific Film Archive Berkeley, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Shanghai, Sao Paulo.

       

      Written & Directed by Jos de Putter

      Director of photography: Stef Tijdink; Melle van Essen

      Edited by Nathalie Alonso; Riekje Ziengs

      Sound recording: Martijn van Haalen; Paul Veld

      Sound design: Jan van Sandwijk

      2nd camera: Ton Peters; Wiro Felix

      Post production: Puck Goossen

      Produced by Riekje Ziengs / Jos de Putter

       

      Copyright 1993 Dieptescherpte / IKON

    Feature documentaries

    A way to B

    See no evil

    Solo; out of a dream

    Beyond the game

    How many roads

    Alias Kurban Saïd

    Dans, Grozny dans

    The making of a new empire

    Solo; the law of the Favela

    Het is een schone dag geweest

     

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