Cinema Context: Film Culture History in the Netherlands from 1896

Cinema Context is a historical data collection for the history of film culture, in particular the screening and distribution of films in the Netherlands. It was conceived in a project financed by NWO, realized in 2005, under the direction of Dr. Karel Dibbets. The data is maintained by editors at the University of Amsterdam, with technical support and hosting provided by the Library of the University of Amsterdam.

Use Cases

• Analyze film distribution patterns in the Netherlands based on historical screening data.
• Study the evolution of film culture based on the encyclopedia of film culture mentioned in the description.
• Map the historical network of cinemas and distributors based on the relational data structure suggested by the platform tags.

Strengths

• Data is actively maintained and updated by editors at the University of Amsterdam.
• Project was financed by NWO (Dutch Research Council), suggesting a research-grade origin.
• The dataset provides snapshots with versioning indicated in filenames.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data may reflect geographic and temporal bias inherent to its focus on the Netherlands from 1896.

Provenance

Source

University of Amsterdam (Special Collections), Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Collection Method

Historical data collection and curation by project editors.

Time Range

From 1896 onwards

Geography

Netherlands