Desmet Film Collection

This is the Jean Desmet Film collection of The EYE Film Institute in The Netherlands (EYE), one of the most important Dutch audiovisual archives, which preserves and presents both Dutch and foreign films screened in the Netherlands.

The Jean Desmet collection "consists mainly of an exceptional group of films, company documents, posters and film stills from the 1910s. The collection contains a large number of unique film prints including many masterpieces that were formerly presumed lost. It also exceeds the boundaries of film history and has great value for the socio-historical description and appreciation of one of the most important decades in modern history as it reflects cinematographic changes and many stories about the 1910s that still need to be unveiled" (UNESCO). It was added to UNESCO's Memory of the World Register in 2011 because of its special historical value.

The following figures give answers to common questions about the composition of this collection:

What part of the collection is included in the Media Suite?

It is important to take into account that it is not possible to know how big the collection actually is (*) but, Via the Media Suite, EYE offers access to its entire Jean Desmet Film collection as held in their archive, consisting of 1129 films (as July, 2018).

(*) "although the collection seems to be a finite entity, it also keeps growing (923 and counting)*. It's hard to tell how many films would make the collection 'complete': it is difficult to establish which films exactly had been distributed by Jean Desmet and thus which ones we are still missing" (EYE collection blog).

What years does the archive cover?

The EYE Jean Desmet Film collection includes films between 1906 and 1919.

Figure 1: Number of films in the collection over time

How and how often is the data updated in the Media Suite?

The collection's metadata is made available via the Media Suite by EYE via an export (dump) from the EYE catalogue.

The latest update to the Media Suite's data from EYE Jean Desmet film collection has been done in July, 2018.

What kind of media is included?

Figure 2: Genres

What portion of the collection is digital?

A big part of the Jean Desmet film collection has been digitized. The digital films can be accessed directly at EYE's player system via the Media Suite.

Figure 3: Percentage of material that is digital over time

Does the collection include enrichments?

This collection does not include any enrichments at this moment.

Where to find more information?

• For more background information about the Jean Desmet collection, visit
• The EYE's Jean Desmet collection description
• The EYE's Jean Desmet collection dossier

How to search in this collection?

To search the content of this collection, use the Media Suite’s Search tools.