Home-grown Dutch

In contrast to the international orientation of Ivens, in the 1950s Bert Haanstra placed a particular emphasis on home-grown Dutch productions Haanstra was the first Dutch film maker to win an Oscar, with his short documentary Glass from 1959, in which he adopted an impressionistic style to film the process of glass making. Haanstra moved from documentaries to making feature films with the enormously popular village comedy Fanfare (1958), based on a screenplay by the influential journalist and writer Jan Blokker. Fanfare was one of the first feature films to be financed by the Production Fund for Dutch Film, established in 1956. This state-run subsidising organ ensured continuity in Dutch film production. Fons Rademakers’ début film, the rural drama The Village on the River (1958), which was also nominated for an Oscar, was made with funding by the Production Fund for Dutch Film. For a long time Rademakers – who was educated in Italy and France – set the tone with his literary film productions: Like Two Drops of Water (1963), Max Havelaar (1976) and the Oscar-winning film The Assault (1986).