september 19, 2018

Selfy by the fox



Posting intentionally unattractive selfies has also become common in the early 2010s—in part for their humor value, but in some cases also to explore issues of body image or as a reaction against the perceived narcissism or over-sexualization of typical selfies.

The practice of taking selfies has been criticised not only for being narcissistic, preventing assessment and appreciation of what is happening in the present, but also for being mindlessly conformist behaviour, when everyone does what everyone else is doing, "like that scene in The Life of Brian – where the crowd gathers outside Brian's window and enthusiastically chants in unison: 'Yes, we're all individuals! ... Yes, we are all different!

'

september 18, 2018

The park (VondelPark)





A film festival is an organized, extended presentation of films in one or more cinemas or screening venues, usually in a single city or region. Increasingly, film festivals show some films outdoors. Films may be of recent date and, depending upon the festival's focus, can include international and domestic releases. Some festivals focus on a specific film-maker or genre (e.g., film noir) or subject matter (e.g., horror film festivals). A number of film festivals specialise in short films of a defined maximum length. Film festivals are typically annual events.


september 16, 2018

Cityseeing in Amsterdam



An event movie is a film whose release itself is considered a major event, such as an anticipated sequel or a big budget film with major stars generating considerable attention and state-of-the-art special effects. An event movie is usually the highest-grossing box office movie in the particular year and becomes a part of popular culture. Steven Spielberg's 1975 movie Jaws is considered the first event movie.



september 15, 2018

Beatrix-park


 
 

World cinema is not the sum-total of all films made around the world. Its use is analogous to the use of the term "world literature". Goethe used the concept of Weltliteratur (world literature) in several of his essays in the early decades of the nineteenth century to describe the international circulation and reception of literary works in Europe, including works of non-Western origin. An interest in "world cinema" suggests an awareness of high-quality films made outside the Hollywood studio system which dominates international viewership. 




 

september 14, 2018

Luisenpark by boat

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In film making, the 180-degree rule is a basic guideline regarding the on-screen spatial relationship between a character and another character or object within a scene. By keeping the camera on one side of an imaginary axis between two characters, the first character is always frame right of the second character. Moving the camera over the axis is called jumping the line or crossing the line; breaking the 180-degree rule by shooting on all sides is known as shooting in the round.

The 180-degree rule enables the audience to visually connect with unseen movement happening around and behind the immediate subject and is important in the narration of battle scenes.


september 13, 2018

This Beautiful City



We are in the Amsterdam Museum to view the exhibition 'The Most Beautiful City', which was compiled by Mayor Eberhard van der Laan just before his death.

In the Amsterdam Gallery of the museum 80 selected photographs and objects from the collection of the Amsterdam Museum and the City Archives will be exhibited. With this selection, Van der Laan wanted to make clear how Amsterdammers in the past dealt with growing pains and economic growth of the city. He hoped to give an impetus to a good conversation about the future of the city.



september 12, 2018

Luisenpark in Mannheim



The concept of orphan films acquired an academic and creative entity in the 1990s from new approaches to managing film archives. At that time, orphan films simply identified films without copyright or abandoned by their owners or custodians. However, the term gradually widened to include any kind of footage which has been abandoned, found or forgotten for commercial, material, cultural, political and historical reasons:  material in the public domain, home movies, film out-takes, unreleased films, industrial and educational films, clandestine work, ethnographic films, newsreels, censored material, unfinished pieces, fragments of productions from the silent era, archival material, reels found, medical films, short or unusual format films, advertisements, sponsored films, student work and any other ephemeral piece of celluloid.


september 11, 2018

Enkhuizen



Cinematography finds uses in many fields of science and business as well as for entertainment purposes and mass communication.

The word "cinematography" is based on the Greek words κίνημα (kinema), meaning "movement, motion" and γράφειν (graphein) meaning "to record", together meaning "recording motion". The word used to refer to the art, process, or job of filming movies, but later its meaning became restricted to "motion picture photography"




september 10, 2018

St.Petersburg travel trips transport



In April 1896, just four months after the first films were shown in Paris, the first cinematic apparatus appeared in Russia. The first films seen in the Russian Empire were via the Lumière brothers, in Moscow and St. Petersburg in May 1896. In the same month, the first film was shot in Russia, by Lumière cameraman Camille Cerf, a record of the coronation of Nicholas II at the Kremlin in Moscow. The first permanent cinema was opened in St Petersburg in 1896 at Nevsky Prospect, No. 46.



The first Russian movies were shown in the Moscow Korsh Theatre by artist Vladimir Sashin. After purchasing a Vitagraph projector, Sashin started to make short films, which by August 1896 were being demonstrated to theatre audiences after the theatre performance had ended.



september 08, 2018

Flasback



In film, flashbacks depict the subjective experience of a character by showing a memory of a previous event and they are often used to "resolve an enigma". Flashbacks are important in film noir and melodrama films. In movies and television, several camera techniques, editing approaches and special effects have evolved to alert the viewer that the action shown is a flashback or flashforward; for example, the edges of the picture may be deliberately blurred, photography may be jarring or choppy, or unusual coloration or sepia tone, or monochrome when most of the story is in full color, may be used. The scene my fade or dissolve, often with the camera focused on the face of the character and there is typically a voice-over by a narrator (who is often, but not always, the character who is experiencing the memory.




Rothenburg ob den Tauber



The "four walls" system of film production (also known as the "four wall system") refers to a system whereby a film production company rents a sound stage and associated space but then contracts separately for additional facilities and hires freelance staff. The four walls system became prominent in the 1960s  , following the demise of the Hollywood studio system from 1948 . Some big studios, like Pinewood Studios in England, became "four walls" facilities  for independent film producers and television companies. These facilities no longer engage in the development or distribution of films.


 

september 07, 2018

Silent life






Photomicrograph
A light micrograph or photomicrograph is a micrograph prepared using an optical microscope, a process referred to as photomicroscopy. At a basic level, photomicroscopy may be performed simply by connecting a camera to a microscope, thereby enabling the user to take photographs at reasonably high magnification.





Laundry



A web series is a series of scripted or non-scripted videos, generally in episodic form, released on the Internet and part of the web television medium, which first emerged in the late 1990s and become more prominent in the early 2000s (decade). A single instance of a web series program can be called an episode or "webisode", however the latter term is not often used. In general, web series can be watched on a range of platforms, including desktop, laptop, tablets and smartphones. They can also be watched on television.




september 06, 2018

Hello I am Amsterdam

The first flexible photographic roll film was marketed by George Eastman in 1885, but this original "film" was actually a coating on a paper base. As part of the processing, the image-bearing layer was stripped from the paper and transferred to a hardened gelatin support. The first transparent plastic roll film followed in 1889. It was made from highly flammable nitrocellulose ("celluloid"), now usually called "nitrate film".

Although cellulose acetate or "safety film" had been introduced by Kodak in 1908, at first it found only a few special applications as an alternative to the hazardous nitrate film, which had the advantages of being considerably tougher, slightly more transparent, and cheaper. The changeover was not completed for X-ray films until 1933, and although safety film was always used for 16 mm and 8 mm home movies, nitrate film remained standard for theatrical 35 mm motion pictures until it was finally discontinued in 1951.

Films remained the dominant form of photography until the early 21st century when advances in digital photography drew consumers to digital formats.


Domberg Bamberg



Follow shot is a specific camera angle in which the subject being filmed is seemingly pursued by the camera, for example by a Steadicam. The follow shot can be achieved through tracking devices, panning, the use of a crane, and zoom lenses resulting in different qualitative images but, nevertheless, recording a subject (performer) in motion.

september 04, 2018

L'histoire kaputt




A man lifts a big black thing out of a closet, there is a composite girl, and there are creatures in the forest. Eye presents new work by Alex van Warmerdam in an exhibition specially designed for the film museum. Characters, objects and situations come to life in a mysteriously staged setting, complemented by big screens showing scenes from Van Warmerdam’s films. All elements of the exhibition testify to the down-to-earth imagination and idiosyncratic approach of Alex van Warmerdam as a maker of films and works for the stage, as well as a writer and painter.

At the invitation of Eye Filmmuseum, Alex van Warmerdam (1952) created an exhibition with new films, installations and objects. Film, theatre, design and painting come together in L’histoire kaputt, a term that denotes a wondrous world where things are completely convincingly different from how they appear.


Mannheim : Wasserturm



A film school is any educational institution dedicated to teaching aspects of filmmaking, including such subjects as film production, film theory, digital media production, and screenwriting. Film history courses and hands-on technical training are usually incorporated into most film school curricula. Technical training may include instruction in the use and operation of cameras, lighting equipment, film or video editing equipment and software, and other relevant equipment. Film schools may also include courses and training in such subjects as television production, broadcasting, audio engineering, and animation.


september 02, 2018

Bamberg Symphony



A recent study from BBC Earth and UC-Berkeley has shown that watching nature documentaries can inspire "significant increases in feelings of awe, contentedness, joy, amusement and curiosity" and conversely "reduce feelings of tiredness, anger and stress." In short, they can engender what the authors of the study call ‘real happiness’ – a kind of happiness that leads to actual improvement in individuals’ health and wellbeing, 




River Regnitz



Development of film
In this stage, the project producer selects a story, which may come from a book, play, another film, true story, video game, comic book, graphic novel, or an original idea, etc. After identifying a theme or underlying message, the producer works with writers to prepare a synopsis. Next they produce a step outline, which breaks the story down into one-paragraph scenes that concentrate on dramatic structure. Then, they prepare a treatment, a 25-to-30-page description of the story, its mood, and characters. This usually has little dialogue and stage direction, but often contains drawings that help visualize key points. Another way is to produce a scriptment once a synopsis is produced.




september 01, 2018

The Cabin



In film, an insert is a shot of part of a scene as filmed from a different angle and/or focal length from the master shot. Inserts cover action already covered in the master shot, but emphasize a different aspect of that action due to the different framing. An insert differs from a cutaway as cutaways cover action not covered in the master shot.


There are more exact terms to use when the new, inserted shot is another view of actors: close-up, head shot, knee shot, two shot. So the term "insert" is often confined to views of objects—and body parts, other than the head. Often inserts of this sort are done separately from the main action, by a second-unit director using stand-ins.

Inserts and cutaways can both be vexatious for directors, as care must be taken to preserve continuity by keeping the objects in the same relative position as in the main take, and having the lighting be the same.

Historic images of Dutch Whaling



Most early forms of motion pictures or film were black and white. Some color film processes, including hand coloring were experimented with, and in limited use, from the earliest days of motion pictures. The switch from most films being in black-and-white to most being in color was gradual, taking place from the 1930s to the 1960s. Even when most film studios had the capability to make color films, the technology's popularity was limited, as using the Technicolor process was expensive and cumbersome. For many years, it was not possible for films in color to render realistic hues, thus its use was restricted to historical films or musicals until the 1950s, while many directors preferred to use black-and-white stock. For the years 1940–1966, a separate Academy Award for Best Art Direction was given for black-and-white movies along with one for color.



Devils' Cave



Horror is a genre of speculative fiction which is intended to, or has the capacity to frighten, scare, disgust, or startle its readers or viewers by inducing feelings of horror and terror. Literary historian J. A. Cuddon has defined the horror story as "a piece of fiction in prose of variable length... which shocks or even frightens the reader, or perhaps induces a feeling of repulsion or loathing". It creates an eerie and frightening atmosphere. Horror is frequently supernatural, though it can be non-supernatural. Often the central menace of a work of horror fiction can be interpreted as a metaphor for the larger fears of a society.
 

 

augustus 31, 2018

Urk former island at the time




Urk is a municipality and a town in the Flevoland province in the central Netherlands.

Urk is first mentioned in historical records dating to the 10th century, when it was still an island in the Almere, a lake that would become part of the Zuiderzee in the 13th century after a series of incursions by the North Sea. In 1939, a dike from the mainland to Urk ended the town's island status, just as the Afsluitdijk project was changing the salt water Zuiderzee surrounding Urk to the less saline IJsselmeer. Later in the 20th century, seabed areas surrounding Urk were reclaimed from the sea and became the Noordoostpolder.

The mainstay of the town's economy has always been fishing, and the products of the sea coming in through Urk's harbour continue to be exported widely, although today Urk's fishing boats must travel greater distances to gather them than was required in most historical periods. Religious life has also traditionally been very important to Urk's inhabitants, with active, conservative congregations of the Dutch Reformed denominations playing key roles in the life of the community.






augustus 30, 2018

Swiss Germany: Frankische Schweiz

Live action is a form of cinematography or videography that uses actors and actresses instead of animation or animated pictures. Live action can be in conjunction with animation to create a unique cinematic form. Live action is used to define not only movies, but also video games or similar visual media According to the Cambridge English Dictionary, Live Action "[involves] real people or animals, not models, or images that are drawn, or produced by computer".






Fotos of Bamberg




The advent of the microcomputer and digital photography has led to the rise of digital prints. These prints are created from stored graphic formats such as JPEG, TIFF, and RAW. The types of printers used include inkjet printers, dye-sublimation printer, laser printers, and thermal printers. Inkjet prints are sometimes given the coined name "Giclée".

The Web has been a popular medium for storing and sharing photos ever since the first photograph was published on the web by Tim Berners-Lee in 1992 (an image of the CERN house band Les Horribles Cernettes). Today popular sites such as Flickr, Picasa, PhotoBucket and 500px are used by millions of people to share their pictures.




augustus 29, 2018

Maidentrip of ferry



A new electric ferry is lounched at the quai of the IJ river in Amsterdam and at the same time a tallship is sailing by.
The latter is on its way to Antarctica for a new dutch expedition and gets traditional farewel greeting by the firebrigade

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augustus 16, 2018

Creativity and great ideas




David Lynch on Where Great Ideas Come From

Creativity is a phenomenon whereby something new and somehow valuable is formed. The created item may be intangible (such as an idea, a scientific theory, a musical composition, or a joke) or a physical object (such as an invention, a literary work, or a painting).

Scholarly interest in creativity is found in a number of disciplines: engineering, psychology, cognitive science, education, philosophy (particularly philosophy of science), technology, theology, sociology, linguistics, business studies, songwriting, and economics, covering the relations between creativity and general intelligence, personality type, mental and neurological processes, mental health, or artificial intelligence




Dutch Fifties



A newsreel is a form of short documentary film, containing news stories and items of topical interest, that was prevalent between the 1910s and the late 1960s. Typically presented in a cinema, newsreels were a source of current affairs, information, and entertainment for millions of moviegoers. Newsreels were typically exhibited preceding a feature film, but there were also dedicated newsreel theaters in many major cities in the 1930s and '40s,[1] and some large city cinemas also included a smaller theaterette where newsreels were screened continuously throughout the day.

By the end of the 1960s, television news broadcasts had supplanted the format. Newsreels are considered significant historical documents, since they are often the only audiovisual record of certain cultural events.

Eberbach am Neckar



The narrator is, within any story, the fictional or non-fictional, personal or impersonal entity who tells the story to the audience. When the narrator is also a character within the story, he or she is sometimes known as the viewpoint character. The narrator is one of three entities responsible for story-telling of any kind. The others are the author and the audience, A narrator may tell the story from his own point of view (as a fictive entity) or from the point of view of one of the characters in the story. The act or process of telling the particulars of a story is referred to as narration.



augustus 15, 2018

Creation of Zombies





Zombies are fictional creatures usually portrayed as reanimated corpses or virally infected human beings. They are commonly portrayed as cannibalistic in nature. While zombie films generally fall into the horror genre, some cross over into other genres, such as comedy, science fiction, thriller, or romance. Distinct subgenres have evolved, such as the "zombie comedy" or the "zombie apocalypse". Zombies are distinct from ghosts, ghouls, mummies, Frankenstein's monsters or vampires.
Victor Halperin's White Zombie was released in 1932 and is often cited as the first zombie film.




Making of in Bamberg




In filmmaking and video production, footage is raw, unedited material as originally filmed by a movie camera or recorded by a video camera, which typically must be edited to create a motion picture, video clip, television show or similar completed work.

Footage may also refer to sequences used in film and video editing, such as special effects and archive material (for special cases of this, see stock footage and B roll).

Since the term originates in film, footage is only used for recorded images, such as film stock, videotapes or digitized clips – on live television, the signals from video cameras are instead called sources.



Back home





Pigeon photography is an aerial photography technique invented in 1907 by the German apothecary Julius Neubronner, who also used pigeons to deliver medications. A homing pigeon was fitted with an aluminium breast harness to which a lightweight time-delayed miniature camera could be attached. Neubronner's German patent application was initially rejected, but was granted in December 1908 after he produced authenticated photographs taken by his pigeons. He publicized the technique at the 1909 Dresden International Photographic Exhibition, and sold some images as postcards at the Frankfurt International Aviation Exhibition and at the 1910 and 1911 Paris Air Shows.




augustus 14, 2018

Chinese pavillion in Mannheim Germany



It takes a lot of energy to shoot a travel documentary. There are many things to worry about.The production process of travel documentaries is very complicated. First, the director needs to place a large number of staff and allocate all the equipment. In addition, they have to be responsible for formulating travel plans. They also need to book hotels and foods in advance. And they may have to prepare for many unexpected situations.

The documentary filming method is different from many other films. In the process of documentary filming, it is often necessary to interview other people. So the quality of the interview is very important for the documentary.In addition, the details of the documentary are also very important.Take tourism documentaries as an example. Only by making every appealing place in the tourist destination clear, can we attract more people to travel there.There are also some questions about the shooting angle. Because documentaries have a higher requirement for authenticity, they must have the most reasonable shooting angle.






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In media and advertising, nostalgia-evoking images, sounds, and references can be used strategically to create a sense of connectedness between consumers and products with the goal of convincing the public to consume, watch, or buy advertised products. Modern technology facilitates nostalgia-eliciting advertising through the subject, style, and design of an advertisement. The feeling of longing for the past is easily communicated through social media and advertising because these media require the participation of multiple senses, are able to represent their ideas entirely, and therefore become more reminiscent of reality.




augustus 02, 2018

The strugle of the Scheldt







A documentary film is a nonfictional motion picture intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education, or maintaining a historical record.[1] Such films were originally shot on film stock—the only medium available—but now include video and digital productions that can be either direct-to-video, made into a TV show, or released for screening in cinemas. "Documentary" has been described as a "filmmaking practice, a cinematic tradition, and mode of audience reception" that is continually evolving and is without clear boundaries


augustus 01, 2018

The Idea: The Seventh Seal

The Seventh Seal is a 1957 Swedish epic historical fantasy film written and directed by Ingmar Bergman. Set in Denmark during the Black Death, it tells of the journey of a medieval knight and a game of chess he plays with the personification of Death , who has come to take his life.
Bergman developed the film from his own play Wood Painting. The title refers to a passage from the Book of Revelation, used both at the very start of the film, and again towards the end, beginning with the words "And when the Lamb had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour". Here the motif of silence refers to the "silence of God," which is a major theme of the film.









juli 22, 2018

Japanese Garden: Hasselt



A step outline (more commonly called a beat sheet) is a detailed telling of a story with the intention of turning the story into a screenplay for a motion picture.

The step outline briefly details every scene of the screenplay's story, and often has indications for dialog and character interactions. The scenes are often numbered for convenience.

It can also be an extremely useful tool for a writer working on a spec script.




juli 19, 2018

Basketweirfishtrap



A weir may be used to trap marine fish in the intertidal zone as the tide recedes, fish such as salmon as they attempt to swim upstream to breed in a river, or eels as they migrate downstream. Alternatively, fish weirs can be used to channel fish to a particular location, such as to a fish ladder. Weirs were traditionally built from wood or stones. The use of fishing weirs as fish traps probably dates back prior to the emergence of modern humans, and have since been used by many societies across the world.
In medieval Europe, large fishing weir structures were constructed from wood posts and wattle fences. V-shaped structures in rivers could be as long as 60 m and worked by directing fish towards fish traps or nets. Such weirs were frequently the cause of disputes between various classes of river users and tenants of neighbouring land. Basket weir fish traps are shown in medieval illustrations and surviving examples have been found. Basket weirs are about two metres long and comprise two wicker cones, one inside the other — easy for fish to get into but difficult to escape.



juli 16, 2018

A Ceasar Bridge



The term historical period drama (also historical drama, period drama, costume drama, and period piece) refers to a work set in a past time period, usually used in the context of film and television. It is an informal crossover term that can apply to several genres and is often heard in the context of historical fiction and romances, adventure films, and swashbucklers. A period piece may be set in a vague or general era such as the Middle Ages or a specific period such as the Roaring Twenties. A religious work can qualify as period drama but not as historical drama.




The historical period drama is a film genre in which stories are based upon historical events and famous people. Some historical dramas are docudramas, which attempt an accurate portrayal of a historical event or biography, to the degree that the available historical research will allow.


 

Anyone Can Buy (a Seat at the Cinema)

Video poetry is a wide-ranging category where very different typologies of works converge. Some video poetry works use digital elaboration to achieve Digital poetry that is entirely generated by software. When absent of digital effects, video poetry is akin to performance works or a poetry reading recorded in video (digital or analogue) but goes beyond the straightforward act of recording to establish a link with video art. In this sense, video poetry is a particular form of video art comprising poetry texts elaborated at various acoustic and visual levels

Maggie Clark: As my focus is primarily in documentary, the film poem has been an opportunity for me to expand my creative practice and be a little bit more playful with the way I film. It’s pushed me to use visual metaphor as a storytelling device, which is a challenge I’ve really enjoyed! Laura’s poem is about love in the face of prejudice. It carries a sincere and important message, which I hope to do justice in my film.

Laura Seymour: When Maggie and I were talking at the start of the project, I saw that one or two images in the poem stuck out visually from the rest, and also that the images that stuck out visually were perhaps the most ambiguous. The idea that readers or watchers might be more affected by ambivalent imagery was really interesting to me.

juli 15, 2018

Childfilms in Sweden



Both in the United States and Europe, the idea of children's films began to gain relative prominence in the 1930s. The term "family film" is essentially an American expression while "children's film" is considered to be a European expression.
However, the difference between the two terms can be seen in casting methods adopted by American and European films respectively. In American family films, the search for a child protagonist involves casting children that meet a specific criterion or standard for physical appearance. In contrast, European children's films look to cast children who appear "ordinary". Similarly, in American family films, the adult cast can be composed of well known actors or actresses in an effort to attract a wider audience, presenting narratives from an adult or parental perspective. This is shown through the casting, content of the plot, editing, and even mise-en-scène. European children's films are told from the child's perspective, portraying the story through the various emotions and experiences of the child.





Spring in Uppsala





A film essay (or "cinematic essay") consists of the evolution of a theme or an idea rather than a plot per se, or the film literally being a cinematic accompaniment to a narrator reading an essay.

From another perspective, an essay film could be defined as a documentary film visual basis combined with a form of commentary that contains elements of self-portrait (rather than autobiography), where the signature (rather than the life story) of the filmmaker is apparent. The cinematic essay often blends documentary, fiction, and experimental film making using tones and editing styles.


Ostia antica

The ancient Roman city of Ostia was in antiquity situated at the mouth of the river Tiber, some 30 kilometres to the west of Rome. The shoreline moved seawards, due to silting, from the Middle Ages until the 19th century. Therefore Ostia is today still lying next to the Tiber, but at a distance of some three kilometers from the beach. Ostia is Latin for "mouth", the mouth of the Tiber. The river was used as harbour, but in the Imperial period two harbour basins were added to the north, near Leonardo da Vinci airport. The harbour district was called Portus, Latin for "harbour".



juli 13, 2018

Italian Riviera



The peplum film (pepla plural), also known as sword-and-sandal, is a genre of largely Italian-made historical or Biblical epics (costume dramas) that dominated the Italian film industry from 1958 to 1965, eventually being replaced in 1965 by Eurospy films and Spaghetti Westerns. They can be immediately differentiated from the competing Hollywood product by their use of dubbing.





FF Rembrandt




Social media are interactive Web 2.0 Internet-based applications.
User-generated content, such as text posts or comments, digital photos or videos, and data generated through all online interactions, is the lifeblood of social media.
Users create service-specific profiles for the website or app that are designed and maintained by the social media organization.
Social media facilitate the development of online social networks by connecting a user's profile with those of other individuals or groups.




juli 12, 2018

Max Havelaar (Trailer)




An idealistic Dutch colonial officer posted to Indonesia in the 19th century is cohvinced that he can make the kinds of changes that will actually help the local people he is in charge of, but circumstances soon make him realize just how out of touch he really is, and it doesn't take long for things to go from bad to worse.


Dutch East Indies



The Dutch East Indies (or Netherlands East-Indies; Dutch: Nederlands(ch)-Indië; Indonesian: Hindia Belanda) was a Dutch colony consisting of what is now Indonesia. It was formed from the nationalised colonies of the Dutch East India Company, which came under the administration of the Dutch government in 1800.

During the 19th century, the Dutch possessions and hegemony were expanded, reaching their greatest territorial extent in the early 20th century. This colony was one of the most valuable European colonies under the Dutch Empire's rule, and contributed to Dutch global prominence in spice and cash crop trade in the 19th to early 20th century. The colonial social order was based on rigid racial and social structures with a Dutch elite living separate from but linked to their native subjects. The term Indonesia came into use for the geographical location after 1880. In the early 20th century, local intellectuals began developing the concept of Indonesia as a nation state, and set the stage for an independence movement.

Japan's World War II occupation dismantled much of the Dutch colonial state and economy. Following the Japanese surrender in August 1945, Indonesian nationalists declared independence which they fought to secure during the subsequent Indonesian National Revolution. The Netherlands formally recognised Indonesian sovereignty at the 1949 Dutch–Indonesian Round Table Conference with the exception of the Netherlands New Guinea (Western New Guinea), which was ceded to Indonesia 14 years later in 1963 under the provisions of the New York Agreement.