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.

[2] Thanks to Bals many new film countries and continents have been introduced to The Netherlands, among which Russia, China, Taiwan, Africa and Latin-America.

His parents were simple, Catholic citizens from the traditional Wijk C in Utrecht, who traded in animal-waste products.

During his time at highschool, the Catholic Bonifatius Lyceum in Utrecht, he set up a small singing group - for which Bals wrote his own lyrics on well-known pop songs - and was the leader of the club Dragnet; a small group of friends that used to listen to music from the American Forces Network in Germany on the radio, play records and gamble.

His fellow students describe him as 'a solitary, not particularly nice boy, who liked arranging and organizing things and preferred to be in charge.

It was partly this predilection for jazz that eventually made Bals quit his high school education, which he never completed.

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.

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.

'He had a perfect nose for attracting the right people to help him carry out his ideas (...) who made sure that the exteriors of the cinemas always looked different and always sparked the imagination.

I didn’t yet fully understand films by people like Antonioni or Buñuel, but gradually I did begin to experience a certain feeling, something like ‘hey, put your brain on hold and just take it in.’ It wasn’t taught, the feeling, it was just out there.’[4] In the same year he married Marjolijn de Vries whom he met at the cinema they were both working at.

'[5] This motivated other institutions, among which the Filmweek Arhem on YouTube, to approach the passionate cinephile for the organization of all kinds of filmrelated events.

[6] 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.

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.

'[7] He travelled around the world and visited a wide range of filmfestivals, among which Venice, Cannes, Edinburgh, Berlin and Locarno, and cities such as Rio de Janeiro, New York City, Belgrade and Lisbon, where he watched around seven hundred films a year.

According to Bals, the masters of the cinema were to be found in the Third World, which made him introduce continents such as Asia, Africa and Latin-America, to the festival.

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.