Twenty-two people are recorded as having produced fictional films in the Dutch East Indies between 1926, when L. Heuveldorp released Loetoeng Kasaroeng, the colony's first domestically produced film,[1] and 1949, when the Dutch formally recognised Indonesia's sovereignty after a four-year revolution, leaving the Dutch East Indies defunct.
[a][2] Altogether, they are credited for 93 of all known films produced in the Indies, and four of them remained active after independence.
The most active of these, The Teng Chun, made his debut in 1931 with Boenga Roos dari Tjikembang; he would go on to produce another 27 films before independence.
[6] No native Indonesian film producers are recorded from this period, although several productions were credited only to companies.
[8] The Indonesian film historian Misbach Yusa Biran writes that works produced during this time were emphatically commercial, not paying attention to nationalistic or aesthetic values.