Iratxe Jaio and Klaas van Gorkum initiated a 6 hour film screening of ‘la Commune (Paris 1871)’ of Peter Watkins. The film visualises a re-enactment of the historical events that took place in Paris in 1871, when the citizens created through insurgent forces, a free state in the city centre, that came to a tragic end after a short and intensive period. Peter Watkins worked with amateur-actors, selected because of their personal similarities with the characters they played in the movie. The way the actors emphasize with the historical events is striking. The re-enactment of the history of ‘La Commune’ is alternated with discussions that took place on the set about actual social problems and conflicts. History and topicality are fluently placed next to each other. After the film screening we discussed the movie.

Iratxe Jaio and Klaas van Gorkum wanted to link the rise of socialism in the Netherlands and ‘la Commune’. They investigated, among other things, the mistake of Troelstra in 1918. Pieter Jelles Troelstra, tried to persuade the Dutch citizens to join a socialistic revolution, right after the Russian Revolution had started. This attempt failed and was written in history as the mistake of Troelstra. Pieter Jelles Troelstra grew up in Stiens, Friesland and started his political career in the Frisian people’s party. After that he became part of the parliament for the SDAP (Social Democrat Labour Party)

Besides that Iratxe Jaio and Klaas van Gorkum did some research on the career of Ferdinand Domela Nieuwenhuis, who was one of the initiators of the socialist movement in the Netherlands. Nieuwenhuis was eligible for the election of the parliament for the Frisian people’s party. Unexpectedly he was elected. He was popular among citizens because he was able to explain his visions very clearly and he was a good writer. After 1898 Nieuwenhuis turned away from the parliamentary democracy and became an anarchist.

Iratxe Jaio and Klaas van Gorkum made drawings on the wall as a result of this research. They created connection between these historical events and actual developments within society.

During the research it became clear for Iratxe Jaio and Klaas van Gorkum that it was more interesting to link the project ‘Wolkom yn it Heitelân’ and ‘La Commune’, because of their personal involvement. They decided to re-enact the intro of ‘La Commune’, but now concentrated on ‘Wolkom yn it Heitelân’. Within the intro of ‘La Commune’ the following scenes are briefly summarized. The same method Jaio and van Gorkum used for the intro of ‘Wolkom yn it Heitelân’. The re-enactment of the project remains a promise. It’s an intro for a movie that has not been made. The intro functioned as a conclusion of a very intensive group project that took place for six weeks long. In this video Wouter Osterholt and Elke Uitentuis are the amateur-actors. They play the roles of Klaas van Gorkum and Iratxe Jaio.




These mural drawings are made during the research of Klaas van Gorkum and Iratxe Jaio on the failure of Troelstra to instigate a Dutch revolution, known as the 'vergissing van Troelstra'.