The Dutch Polygoon-Profilti was a cinema newsreel company in the Netherlands from 1919 to 1987. It started with weekly news items in the Dutch movie theaters and lasted until 1987 when it finally surrendered to television news shows.
The company was founded in 1919 and then made in-between movies for the silent movies of that time. Starting from 1921, it made ordered custom movies like 'the winning of brown coal "Carisborg"' (name translated) or 'Steam wheat mill "Holland" in Amsterdam' (name translated). Then in 1924 it started with cinema newsreel Hollands Nieuws, first bi-weekly, from the 1930s weekly.
"Where they are not, nothing is happening" was the motto of the cameramen of Polygoon who traveled up and down the Dutch countryside to capture news and local culture. There was a lot of competition at that time from other companies like Profilti and Haghefilm. Contracts for sport events, cameramen trying to cheat each other or fighting, aggressive sales methods and vague acquisitions were common.
After World War II, the Polygoon-journal had its glory days; 400 different cinemas weekly showed Neêrlands Nieuws and Wereldnieuws. In 1946, the editor Philip Bloemendal (1918–1999) started as commentator; his particular voice became synonymous with Polygoon. Because of the emergence of the television in the Netherlands by the late 1950s, the Polygoon journals lost much attention, but the service lasted until 1987 before it finally ended.
Cameramen employed by Polygoon had orders to fill their reels, no matter what. If not for news, then with the local celebrity or even shots of famous buildings or locations. Because of this, Polygoon's archive is now a valuable source of historical stock footage available for other productions. It is currently being digitalized by the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision located in Hilversum. Several Polygoon newsreels can also be found on YouTube. One such example is the arrival of Thomas Cook's Rugby Club the first visiting team to play against Hilversum in 1958, filmed by Polygoon at the AGOVV Apeldoorn stadium in Apeldoorn.
Hilversum is a city and municipality in the province of North Holland, Netherlands. Located in the heart of the Gooi, it is the largest urban centre in that area. It is surrounded by heathland, woods, meadows, lakes and smaller towns. Hilversum is part of the Randstad, one of the largest conurbations in Europe, and the Amsterdam metropolitan area; it is about 22 km southeast of Amsterdam's city centre and about 15 km north of Utrecht.
Apeldoorn is a municipality and city in the province of Gelderland in the centre of the Netherlands. The municipality of Apeldoorn, including villages like Beekbergen, Loenen, Ugchelen and Hoenderloo, had a population of 165,525 on 1 December 2021. The western half of the municipality lies on the Veluwe ridge, with the eastern half in the IJssel valley.
A newsreel is a form of short documentary film, containing news stories and items of topical interest, that was prevalent between the 1910s and the mid 1970s. Typically presented in a cinema, newsreels were a source of current affairs, information, and entertainment for millions of moviegoers. Newsreels were typically exhibited preceding a feature film, but there were also dedicated newsreel theaters in many major cities in the 1930s and ’40s, and some large city cinemas also included a smaller theaterette where newsreels were screened continuously throughout the day.
The Nederlandse Omroep Stichting is one of the broadcasting organisations making up the Dutch public broadcasting system. It has a special statutory obligation to make news and sports programmes for the three Dutch public television channels and the Dutch public radio services. It is funded by the Dutch government.
Cinema of the Netherlands refers to the film industry based in the Netherlands. Because the Dutch film industry is relatively small, and there is little or no international market for Dutch films, almost all films rely on state funding. This funding can be achieved through several sources, for instance through the Netherlands Film Fund or the public broadcast networks. In recent years the Dutch Government has established several tax shelters for private investments in Dutch films.
Newsfront is a 1978 Australian drama film starring Bill Hunter, Wendy Hughes, Chris Haywood and Bryan Brown, directed by Phillip Noyce. The screenplay is written by David Elfick, Bob Ellis, Philippe Mora, and Phillip Noyce. The original music score is composed by William Motzing. This film was shot on location in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Incorporating much actual newsreel footage, the film is shot in both black and white and colour.
RTL Nederland is a Dutch media network, a subsidiary of DPG Media. The media company is located in Hilversum, although the licences of its TV stations are issued in Luxembourg.
The Netherlands Institute for Sound & Vision is the cultural archive and a museum located in Hilversum. The Institute for Sound & Vision collects, looks after, and provides access to over 70% of the Dutch audio-visual heritage. In total, the collection of more than 750,000 hours of [television, radio, music and film that began in 1898 and continues to grow daily, makes Sound & Vision one of the largest audiovisual [archive]s in Europe. It was founded in 1997 as the Netherlands Audiovisual Archive, and adopted its current name in 2002. Its history, however, goes back to 1919, with the foundation of the Nederlandsch Centraal Filmarchief, being one of its precursors.
Amersfoort Centraal is the main railway station in Amersfoort in the province of Utrecht, Netherlands. The station was an important link between the western part of the Netherlands and the north and east of the country until December 2012 when the Hanzelijn opened.
Willy Mullens was a Dutch producer, director, and promoter of movies. He is considered to be one of the early pioneers of Dutch cinema, and one of his movies was recently elected as one of only sixteen "Canonical Dutch movies." With his brother Bernardus Albertus (Albert) he started around the turn of the 20th century one of the earliest Dutch film production companies, Alberts Frères. By the second decade of that century he was making documentary films that premiered for royalty. His second company, Haghefilm, dominated the Dutch film market between the two World Wars.
Koninklijke Wegener NV was a Dutch publisher of newspapers. It was the largest publisher of daily regional newspapers, free local newspapers and special interest magazines in the Netherlands. It also sold internet products and graphical products. The company ceased to exist when it was acquired by Belgian media company De Persgroep in 2015.
Media Park is a large business park in the Dutch city of Hilversum. This site is home to a number of Dutch broadcasters and media companies, and is the headquarters of the national public broadcasting system NPO.
Fox News was the original newsreel established by movie mogul William Fox. It was eventually replaced by Fox's pioneering sound newsreel, Fox Movietone News, which began regular operations in December 1927.
NH Media, officially Stichting RTV NH, is the regional public broadcaster for the Dutch province of North Holland. Its headquarters are located in Hilversum.
Strengholt BV, started in 1928 as a publisher of books and magazines, is an international media and entertainment company.
Philippus ('Philip') Bloemendal was a Dutch cinema newsreel editor, announcer and voice-over. He gained nationwide fame as the offscreen announcer of the Dutch national Polygoon newsreel from 1946 to 1986. Bloemendal has been nicknamed "The voice of the Netherlands."
Thomas Cook’s amateur Rugby Football Club was founded in 1910 as part of a wider sports club established by the company in 1897, with the ground at Ravensbourne in Kent. The first club president was Frank Henry Cook, who had played his rugby at Mill Hill School. It ceased playing during both World Wars, and like many ‘house’ rugby clubs it no longer exists. At its most popular the club ran two XV's until it closed in 1966. During its lifetime the club played against well over 100 different clubs in London and the South East. It also established a regular Easter tour to the Netherlands in 1958 playing RC Hilversum. which helped to promote Dutch rugby during the 1960s. The original tour fixture was filmed for Dutch cinemas and television in front of crowd of over 2,600 at the AGOVV Apeldoorn stadium in Apeldoorn.
NOS Journaal is the umbrella name for the news broadcasts of the Dutch public broadcaster NOS on radio and television. The division of the NOS responsible for gathering and broadcasting the news is known as NOS Nieuws, and is based at the Media Park in Hilversum; the NOS also has fully equipped radio and television studios in The Hague, from which political programmes are often produced.
Jan Müller is a media archive executive and former advertising executive. He is currently the CEO of the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia.
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