Piet Meerburg

Biography

Piet Meerburg was a cinema exhibitor, film distributor and theatre owner. Before the Second World War he studied law in Amsterdam and during the war he became involved with the student resistance. During that time, he and a few others came up with the plan to start up a non-profit cinema where students could work in order to earn some money. This plan was realised on 6 November 1945 with the opening of the student cinema Kriterion in Amsterdam. Meerburg was the first director, and in 1947, Paul Kijzer joined him as co-director. Together they were responsible for the programming and purchased the classic Brief Encounter (David Lean, 1945), among other films, for Kriterion.

Together with Kijzer, Meerburg was also responsible for establishing the Nederlands Historisch Film Archief (NHFA) (Dutch Historical Film Archive); he was also the organisation's first director. In 1948, Jan de Vaal, who had been the organisation's secretary, took over as the NHFA's director, which changed its name in 1952 to the Stichting Nederlands Filmmuseum. Over the years, Meerburg built up a chain of cinemas in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague. He was also the director of the Nieuwe de la Mar Theatre in Amsterdam, which he had had taken over in 1952 with Wim Sonneveld and Paul Kijzer. In 1948, Meerburg and Kijzer produced French director Edmond T. Gréville's resistance film Niet tevergeefs.