Huub Bals

On the evening of July 13, 1988, Bals suddenly died of a second heart attack. His plans for the Tarkovsky Fund, meant to help film makers - mainly from the Third World - to get their projects off the ground, were realized after his death with the Hubert Bals Fund. This fund for the support of film makers from Asia, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, Africa and Latin America still exists in the current film festival.

Besides films, Bals enriched the festival with, among other things, discussions, talks with the film makers - the 'Q&A's' of the current festival -, all kinds of parties, the Filmkrant and the currently well known international co-production market Cinemart, which he introduced in 1984.

1984 was also the year Bals got his first heart attack. However, he did not reduce his work or lessen his bad habits; as a real bon-vivant smoking, drinking and eating had become part of his life. The heart attack did have a big influence on his life and character: in the following years Bals became melancholic, pessimistic and exhausted.

Besides his work for Wolff, Bals also worked on another project, for which he bore full responsibility: on June 20, 1973 he opened the very first filmhouse 't Hoogt in Utrecht.

In the same year he married Marjolijn de Vries whom he met at the cinema they were both working at. After Huub was no longer involved in the organization of the Cinemanifestatie (1972) - he organized it four times - the event only lasted for three times:

Although the opening of the first Film International in Calypso on Wednesday June 28, 1972, with the screening of The Postman by the Iranian director Dariush Mehrjui, only counted seventeen visitors, the festival turned out to be a major success, partly thanks to the publicity and programming skills of Bals. To promote the festival, he for example sent hostesses to Amsterdam, armed with a couple of thousand festival folders, with provocative texts such as Keep your trap shut in discussions about films if you haven't been to Film International. It worked; the first Film International attracted around 4500 visitors, screened forty films, and kept growing extensively in the forthcoming years. In the same year of the birth of International Film Festival Rotterdam, his son, Boris Bals, was born. Actually even during the festival, which was back then still in June, later on he moved it to February, because he could have scoops of films that later on would be shown in Berlin and Cannes.

In 1966, Bals started to organize the Cinemanifestatie Utrecht for Wolff; an international film festival which introduced many new directors from diverse countries and new film movements like the Nouvelle Vague to the Netherlands and grew out to be an important biennial film event in the sixties. It was in these years that Bals developed his passion and personal taste for films:

Bals had the reputation of always creating the right atmosphere in the cinema's, by means of big publicity stunts. When La belle americaine was being screened (1962) he had a large American car driven through the centre, at the premiere of Zorba the Creek visitors could learn to dance the sirtaki, and in the case of a ghost film he made sure the cinema hall was filled with a big spider's web. Films that flopped in the rest of The Netherlands could run for weeks in Studio.

When Bals returned from his military service in January 1959, it only took him one month to find a new job. He got hired as assistant-manager at the cinema Camera/Studio of the Wolff Cinema Group, a combination of an arthouse cinema (Studio) and a public theatre (Camera). This position has been of great importance for the rest of Bals' career in the film world. Wolff allowed him the freedom to organize all kinds of events, as for example special filmweeks, like a Bergman film week and a Chaplin festival, in Studio. The first international film week in Studio in February 1963, organized on its seventh anniversary, is often seen as the source of the eventual International Film Festival of Rotterdam.

In April 1957, Bals was called up for military service, which ended his music activities in Utrecht. However, even in the military, Bals could not let go of his passion for organizing; as a Welfare Officer he took care of the entertainment for the NCO's and organized all kinds of parties and film evenings. This is where his interest in film began to develop.

Hubertus Bernardus "Huub" Bals (February 3, 1937 – July 13, 1988) was the first director and creator of International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR), formerly named Film International. IFFR started small in the Calypso cinema and film theatre 't Venster (now Lantaren/Venster) in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, in 1972, with only 4500 visitors and 31 films. In the forthcoming years the film festival expanded gradually under the watchful cinephile eye of Bals to 150.000 visitors and multiple cinemas in 1988 – Bals' last festival – and developed into an annual film event of great international importance, with already more than 350.000 visitors in 2010. Thanks to Bals many new film countries and continents have been introduced to The Netherlands, among which Russia, China, Taiwan, Africa and Latin-America.

Huub Bals was born to Hubertus Bernardus Bals and Lamberta Snellenberg in Utrecht on February 3, 1937. His parents were simple, Catholic citizens from the traditional Wijk C in Utrecht, who traded in animal-waste products. Just before the Second World War, they moved to the working-class district Ondiep in the same city.