Film files

On a regular basis, Eye pays special attention to parts of the collection, or to current events that have a link to the collection.
All sorts of collection issues are addressed: is it possible to restore a film when the original color process no longer exists? How do two different cuts of the same film compare to each other? What do a company’s accounts reveal about a night out at the cinema 100 years ago?

Still from Prinsengracht (1899), Emile Lauste.

68mm: Mutoscope and Biograph

The films of the Mutoscope and Biograph are the oldest films in our vaults.

De wraak van het visschersmeisje (NL, Jan van Dommelen, 1914) before and after restoration.

Digital restoration

How can a digitized film be a faithful representation of the analogue original?

De Amsterdamse Beurs around 1900

Amsterdam in the picture

In 2016, Eye conserved four films in the context of the project called ‘Breng Amsterdam in Beeld’. The films come from Eye’s own collection.

The first Dutch War Films

The changing spirit of times is clearly reflected in the Dutch war film. Our vision of the war in particular is what emerges from the images.

Jean Desmet

File Desmet

The archive of Jean Desmet (1875 - 1956) is one of the main components of the Eye collection. He was a leading film-industry entrepreneur in the 1910s.

Still from Uit het rijk der kristallen (1927, J.C. Mol).

Experimental film in the Netherlands

Experimental films are films whose primary objective is to investigate - for example light, editing or the expectations of the viewer.

Mannen bij aankomst van keizer Wilhelm II in Eijsden op 10 november 1918. Beeld uit de collectie van Eye.

Men at the arrival of Kaiser Wilhelm II in Eijsden on 10 November 1918. Image from the Eye collection.

The end of the First World War (1914 - 1918)

On 11 November, 1918, the First World War ended in an armistice. This tumult can be clearly seen in three films from the Eye collection.

Still from Bloemenvelden Haarlem (1909, Willy Mullens).

The use of colour in early Dutch film

The Eye collection contains a short film made in about 1910, in which two women, a child, and a man walk through beds of flower bulbs. But which film is it?

Theo Frenkel Sr.

Theo Frenkel, the first Dutch director abroad

During the war, Theo Frenkel Sr. grew into one of the Netherlands’ most active filmmakers, with a production of eight full-length feature films in three years.

Still van Tot de uiterste grenzen der aarde (1958), Theo Regout.

Still from Tot de uiterste grenzen der aarde (1958), Theo Regout.

World of wonder: the travelogues of Theo Regout

As an adventurer, Regout follows in the footsteps of the great nineteenth-century explorers, except that he brings a camera along so that he can show us what he sees.