Film and Modern Life in Limburg. Cinema Exhibition between Commerce and Catholic Cultural Politics (1909-1929) The aim of this book is to provide a deeper understanding of the development of a local and regional infrastructure of cinema exhibition as an element in a larger process of modernization that at the same time stimulated that modernization process. The main focus of the book is on the dynamics of cultural adaptation and resistance accompanying the rise of the cinema exhibition industry in the Dutch province Limburg. How did the cinema integrate into the everyday life of the - predominantly Roman Catholic - inhabitants of this region? The empirical basis for this study stems from painstaking historical research of municipal and other archives, newspapers and magazines, surviving business records, etcetera. For this research I have made use of the concept of the cultural intermediary or broker. In brief, cultural brokers negotiate the appropriation of meaning. More concrete, in this research the most prominent intermediary is the cinema owner. He acted as a gatekeeper deciding in what manner and circumstances and in what dosage his audiences were exposed to an international film culture consisting predominantly of foreign products. The exhibitor chose marketing strategies and constructed the social image of his theatre. He balanced the demands of his audiences against for instance the interests of his suppliers, the distributors, or the pressures of government and church authorities. Besides the entrepeneurs, another category of intermediaries that played a major role in the integration of cinema in Limburg were the local and regional government and officials and religious leaders. The Catholic authorities responded cautious to the growing consumption of commercial entertainment in which the cinema appeared as a pivotal institution during the 1910s. Shortly after World War I the Netherlands Cinema League (Nederlandsche Bioscoopbond), a newly founded professional organization for entrepeneurs in the ...