De olympische spelenDe olympische spelen

The ninth Olympic Games took place in Amsterdam in 1928. It seemed to go without saying that a Dutch company should make the official film for this event. Things turned out otherwise, however. When the Nederlandsche Bioscoopbond (NBB) and the organising Dutch Olympic Committee started negotiating the film assignment in 1927, they couldn’t agree on the price. The Olympic Committee also wanted to wait for a bid from a foreign company. In the end, the Committee chose a Swiss producer, but he was unable to arrange financing. For a while it looked like there wouldn’t be any film at all. The Committee saw its task as organising the Games, and any other matters fell outside its responsibility. They changed their tune suddenly in May 1928 when they found an Italian company named LUCE that agreed to make the film for free and give all the revenue to the Committee. The official Olympic film was banned by the NBB. As a result, it was not screened in the Dutch cinemas, even despite a nearly successful mediation attempt by the Ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken.