Collection

The images on the website Dutch Footage are a small part of the total archieve The Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision holds. 

The Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision: home of the national broadcasting archives and owner of unique audio-visual collections

 

The Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision (Nederlands Instituut voor Beeld en Geluid) is one of the largest audio-visual archives in Europe. The Institute preserves a major part of the Dutch audio-visual heritage and makes it accessible to potential users. The collection totals over 700,000 hours of television, radio, music and film. But the Institute is more than just a collection. Apart from functioning as an audio-visual archive for the national broadcasting corporations and others, it also offers a unique media experience for its visitors.

Sound and Vision focuses on collecting and preserving most of the audio-visual heritage of the Netherlands and making it available to as many users as possible.

The Institute’s collection forms an important part of the Dutch cultural heritage. Programme makers use parts of the collection for new programmes and the archive is a unique source of information for research, not only for students and academics, but also for journalists, international production companies and broadcasting organisations.

New material is added to the Sound and Vision collection on a daily basis. The Institute is responsible for keeping the collection in optimal condition, for both present and future use. Digitalisation is an essential part of this preservation, both for efficient long-term management and for making the collection accessible. 

Unique collections highly suitable for international use

The collections, unique in their size and variety, offer an exceptional view of the history of the Netherlands. Some of the Sound and Vision collections are of high international repute. They are extremely suitable for reuse and will give your productions an extra added value. 

Holland
The Netherlands have a rich history. The Holland Collection contains a wealth of authentic footage, documentaries by famous film makers and old Polygoon films. The latter are a series of weekly cinema newsreels shown between the 1920s and the 1980s in Dutch cinemas. The Holland Collection offers an impressive overview of the eternal Dutch struggle with the sea, among other things. It shows how the Netherlands armed itself against the advancing water by means of the Delta works. Everyday life is also on offer in this collection, with footage of street scenes from the old days up to now. In addition, this historic material gives a wonderful outlook on those typically Dutch folkloristic customs and traditions such as Queen’s Day, Princes’ Day and other feasts and festivals, old trades and crafts and typically Dutch regional sports.

Film makers of international stature such as Bert Haanstra, Joris Ivens and John Fernhout, the maker of Sky Over Holland, spent several decades recording a unique portrait of an era of the Netherlands. Their work shows themes such as land, water, the man in the street, typical Dutch customs, and the post-war reconstruction of the Netherlands.

The Holland Collection also offers characteristic cityscapes, for example of Amsterdam with its canals and historic buildings, and picturesque footage of the famous windmills and vast bulb fields in bloom. AV material on controversial issues is to be found in the collection as well: the Dutch drugs policy on coffee shops and soft drugs, the Red Light District, gay marriage, and euthanasia.  

Royal Family
Sound and Vision has an extensive collection of AV material of the Dutch Royal Family at its disposal. It contains the major part of the existing AV archive built up over the past decades and includes a number of privately owned collections as well: From the coronation of Queen Wilhelmina in 1898, one of the oldest films in the Netherlands, to the wedding of Prince Willem Alexander and Princess Máxima in 2002.

There is also a wide range of footage of Prince Bernhard in his capacity of Commander of the Dutch Armed Forces in World War II, as well as many travel reports made of him during his work for World Wildlife Fund and on several economic goodwill missions. 

Sports
Since 2008, the Premier League organisation Eredivisie cv stores all Dutch Premier League soccer matches in one digital archive at Sound and Vision. Matches from earlier years such as the ones between Ajax and Feijenoord can also be found here, with magnificent footage of famous football players such as Van Basten, Gullit and Rijkaard, Bergkamp, Van der Sar and Van Persie. In addition, the sports collection contains historic footage of the 1928 Olympics in Amsterdam, of Johan Cruijff’s career and of the renowned Elfstedentocht, the typically Dutch skating marathon on natural ice through eleven Frisian towns. 

War
The Institute is a secure place for many historic films from the Second World War. This collection contains footage of the German invasion, life in Holland under German occupation, the resistance and the liberation. A great deal of confiscated material from Germany and Japan is also available. Combined with a vast number of 8mm amateur films, this collection offers a unique outlook on how harsh and difficult life was during the war. 

Nature
The Nature Collection offers a number of films made by the world-famous nature film maker Hugo van Lawick. For over 30 years, Van Lawick was based in Camp Ndutu in the Serengeti, a nature reserve in Tanzania. He was married to Jane Goodall, who spent more than 40 years doing groundbreaking research into monkeys and apes. During this period, Van Lawick made a large number of nature documentaries. Later in his career he made some 35mm feature films which became very famous, the renowned “Serengeti Symphony” among them.

In addition, the Nature Collection contains unique animal films made by Bert Haanstra, the famous film maker, such as “Family of Chimps” and “Ape and Super Ape”. Other additions to the Nature Collection are works by cameraman Anton van Munster, who worked with Bert Haanstra among others, and films by Luc Enting, the best-known contemporary Dutch nature film maker.