Jean Desmet’s Dream Factory

Jean Desmet’s Dream Factory: The Adventurous Years of Film (1907-1916) offers an inspiring picture of the early years of film. This new medium developed rapidly into a popular form of entertainment thanks to new technology, artistic ingenuity and creative entrepreneurship. The film industry could grow in part because of passionate businessmen like Jean Desmet (1875-1956), who rose from fairground showman to become one of the most important cinema exhibitors and film distributors in the Netherlands.
This publication pays tribute to Jean Desmet the entrepreneur and pioneer, and especially to the films he screened. Films from the second decade of the last century surprise today’s audiences with their original imaginative power, uninhibited vision and inventive use of film techniques. The visual refinement of many of these films makes them both artistic and modern.

Jean Desmet’s estate is preserved and accessible by the EYE Film museum. The Desmet Collection consists of more than 900 films, but also includes many posters, photographs and documents. Among the films are masterpieces considered lost for decades.

The Desmet Collection is inscribed on UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register.