'Goodwill Ambassador': The Legacy of Dutch Colonial Films

This article looks back at the films commissioned and produced by the Dutch government about their colony in the East Indies between 1912 and 1962. The main focus is on newsreels and documentaries about the colonial war between the Netherlands and Indonesia (1945 to 1949). The article discusses these films and their re-use in later television programmes. The programmes often look back at the colonial war in ways that go beyond the purpose of the original films and the article aims to show the methods that are used to do this.