De wereld rond in 16mm

Almost every year from the mid-1920s, Theo Regout – scion of a family of industrialists in Maastricht – made a long trip to Africa, South America or Asia. In 1931, he took a 16mm film camera along for the first time. That year, he travelled through the Sahara to Sudan. Upon returning, he edited his footage into the film Dwars door de Sahara naar het land van de slaapziekte.

Regout travelled through Africa several times in the ’30s, accompanied by his wife Luise, and always taking his camera along. In the early ’50s, Regout undertook a much longer journey through Africa, staying there for almost two years and taking his family along. He shot footage of places including the Belgian Congo, the Serengeti and the Sahara, and edited these into the film Afrikaans avontuur.

Above all, Theo Regout’s films show the fascination of travel. They are not anthropological records, but voyages into what people at that time thought of as exotic and mysterious – and thanks to the camera we can see it too.

Regout’s 16mm travelogues are among the highlights of Eye’s amateur film collection. In 1998, Ruud Visschedijk of what at the time was the Filmmuseum made a compilation of Regout’s African films under the title Afrikaans avontuur – the same title Regout gave his 1953 film. The compilation consists of three long excerpts from Dwars door de Sahara naar het land van de slaapziekte, Door het oerwoud naar de bronnen van de Nijl and Afrikaans avontuur.

Introduction by Meg Weijers (trainee film collections Eye).