100 years of Dutch Exhibitors Association

During The Netherlands Film Festival, we join with our little The Netherlands Film Star Postcard Festival. The 38th edition of NFF takes place from 27 September till 5 October 2018, and celebrates the achievements of Dutch filmmakers. Also this year, the NVBF, the Dutch cinema Association, celebrates its 100th anniversary. In a book specially compiled for this occasion, the association looks back on this hundred-year history. In this book, two postcards of our collection are included. Two Ross Verlag postcards of Lien Deyers and Truus van Aalten, two Dutch girls who became films stars in Berlin in the late 1920s and were special guests at the ITF Film exhibition in The Hague in 1928.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4457/1, 1929-1930. Photo: Atelier Balázs, Berlin.

Dutch film star Truus van Aalten (1910-1999) made 29 films in the 1920s and 1930s, and only one of them in the Netherlands.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 1728/2, 1927-1928. Photo: Ufa.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3618/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Ufa. Collection: Geoffrey Donaldson Institute.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 5321/1, 1930-1931. Photo: Ufa.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 5774/1, 1930-1931. Photo: Atelier Tannenwald, Wiesbaden.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 6436/1, 1931-1932. Photo: Atelier Gerstenberg, Berlin.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 6790/1, 1931-1932. Photo: Eli Cahn, Berlin.

The Dutch Exhibitors Association

All cinemas, arthouses and movie houses in the Netherlands are a member of the Dutch Exhibitors Association NVBF. Therefore the NVBF is the designated body to aim for collective advocacy, promotion, professional development and communication in the broadest sense of the word.

A precursor of the NVBF started during a meeting of film exhibitors in 1918 in Café Schiller, a grand cafe at the Rembrandtplein in the centre of Amsterdam

In the memorial article that appeared on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the Dutch Cinema Association, Daniel Hamburger jr., one of the founders and for many years chairman of the association, described the start as follows: 'Born out of necessity, forced by circumstances.'

On 8 February 1918, the magazine De Bioscoop-Courant published an open letter from a Maastricht cinema operator, entitled Een Hulpkreet uit de Zuiden (A cry for help from the South). On the initiative of Hamburger jr., a group of cinema operators gathered a week later, on Monday 11 February 1918, in Café Schiller and that is where the history of the association began.

At the beginning of 1919 the distributors also joined together, in the Association of Film Rental Offices, and in the Netherlands two power blocks arose that faced each other, but also often had common interests. A joint disputes committee was established at the beginning of 1921. This cooperation between the two associations soon resulted in a new connection. At that time the Dutch Cinema Association was founded. In 1937, the film production companies joined the union and the entire sector was represented.

In the following century, the resilience of the union was put to the test. There, among other things, the Second World War, internal conflicts, the film inspection, the arrival of foreign companies, the rise of television and later the videocassette and DVD and piracy did occur. Change also came about in 1992, when the NFC was set up by European regulations and cinema operators and the Dutch film theatres, feature film producers and film distributors each joined in their own organisation.

And now there is this wonderful book - in Dutch - full of great pictures of cinemas now and then - and two postcards of Truus and Lien.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 5503/1, 1930-1931. Photo: Ufa.

Dutch actress Lien Deyers (1910-1965) - also known as Lien Deijers and Lien Dyers - was discovered by famous director Fritz Lang who gave her a part in Spione/Spies (1928). She acted in a stream of late silent and early sound films. After 1935 her star faded rapidly and her life ended in tragedy.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 95/1. Photo: Fritz Lang Film. Publicity still for Spione/Spies (Fritz Lang, 1928). Collection: Didier Hanson.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3525/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Atelier Schrecker, Berlin.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4283/1, 1929-1930. Photo: Atelier Balázs, Berlin. Collection: Geoffrey Donaldson Institute.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4283/2, 1929-1930. Photo: Atelier Balázs, Berlin.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 5274/2, 1930-1931. Photo: Atelier Binder, Berlin.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 5315/1, 1930-1931. Photo: Ufa. Collection: Geoffrey Donaldson Institute.

Source: NVBF (Dutch).