Hippolyte De Kempeneer

Before 1920, Hippolyte De Kempeneer was one of the most active of national pioneers (alongside Frenchman Alfed Machin in the fictional sphere). Born in Anderlecht, near Brussels, De Kempeneer had for many years been a wine merchant, then a dealer in beers , before making his first reportage in 1897 (King Leopold II at the Tervuren Exhibition). An astute businessman, he quickly realized the potential of such typically Belgian news items and, with the help of three other cameramen (including Auguste Meuter) shooting in the Hainaut province and around Liège and Brussels, De Kempeneer launched the newreel 'La semaine animée', screened each Friday between 1912 and 1914. He became more profuse, in 1913 founding the 'Ligue du Cinéma Moral', the year after opening the 'Cinéma des Familles', a small theatre reserved for documentaries with school matinees. During the war there came the 'Compagnie Belge des Films Instructifs' (Belgian Instructional Film Company) created "in the service of youth". In the cellars of his cinema he put together a lab with facilities for developing, printing and titling films. Of course, it is impossible to track down all the material shot by or for De Kempeneer, and the majority of these pieces have since been lost. Tirelessly cranking away in the 1910s, he shot dozens od mini-documentaries on events as they happened, recording Brussels life, a cattle exhibition, farm labour, state funerals; then during the war, the provision of supplies and holiday camp scenes. The year 1919 would also see de Kempeneer move into patriotic fiction, when he produced Charles Tutelier's 'The Martyrdom of Belgium'. It was also De Kempeneer who set up the country's first large studio complex in Machelen where Belgian, French, Dutch even Australian directors shot. After the closure of his production company Belga Films in 1926, he retained his laboratory with facilities for developing, printing and subtitling until World War II, when it was sequestrated by the Germans. Producer of the first patriotic features in 1919, he decided once again * this time in secret- to make a film celebrating the glory of the Belgian army which would set the record straight as to the events of 1940 and counter the charges of capitulation and treachery made by many foreign powers. A detailed account of the so-called eighteen-day campaign was elaborated with the help of animated graphics and a commentary by General Van Overstraeten, aide-de-camp to King Léopold III, showing that the king had only done his duty and ought to have hos honour reinstated. Despite the seizure of the negative by the German police in 1943, De Kempeneer's sons managed to reconstruct the film from original records and grant it a theatrical release in September 1944, one month after their father's death. 'Belgique toujours/Immer België', proved a considerable succes, and shortened or re-edited versions (addressing the ensuing "Royal Question" of Léopold's abdication) were also later circulated.