This essay describes the history of the cinema exhibitors in a Dutch mining district through studying their business strategies and the shifting relations they enjoyed with the local community, in order to reconstruct the development of their profession between the world wars. The cinema exhibitor acted as an intermediary, not only between the local, the national and international contexts, but also in drawing the novelty of cinema into the cultural and social life of the region. Bourgeois elites, represented in government and church authorities, were anxious to exert control over commercial entertainment, but looked at in isolation, their policies would reveal more about bureaucratic zeal or middle-class fears than actual cinema practice. The film exhibitor had to negotiate between these pressures from above and the demands of his audience. How he tried to resolve these issues can teach us much about the integration of cinema in modern society