Albert Balink

Albert Balink
Balink in the 1930s
Born	3 August 1906 's-Hertogenbosch, Netherlands
Died	8 February 1976(1976-02-08) (aged 69) Pensacola, Florida, United States
Nationality	Dutch
Occupation	Journalist, filmmaker
Years active	1920s–1950s
Notable work	Pareh Terang Boelan

Albert Balink (3 August 1906 – February 1976) was a Dutch-Indonesian journalist and filmmaker who made important contributions to the Indonesian cinema in the 1930s. Born in the Netherlands, he made his start in the Dutch East Indies as a journalist writing extensively on film. Having learned filmmaking from books, in the mid-1930s he released a documentary and two feature films. In 1938 he immigrated to the United States and married, founding and becoming the editor of The Knickerbocker. His two feature films, Pareh (1936) and Terang Boelan (1937), have been considered the most important films from the Dutch East Indies of the 1930s.

Balink, of Dutch-Indonesian descent, was born on 3 August 1906 in 's-Hertogenbosch, Netherlands. In the 1920s and early 1930s Balink was a reporter with De Locomotief, a newspaper based in Semarang, as well as the Soematra Post based out of Medan. Among his main interests as a journalist while with these papers was film.

With the Wong brothers, Balink started the Java Pacific Film production company in 1934, in what was then the Dutch East Indies. At the time Balink was inexperienced with film, having only book knowledge. Java Pacific Film, which was headquartered in an old tapioca flour factory, first produced the documentary film De Merapi Dreigt (Mount Merapi Looms), in 1934. Advertised as the first documentary film with sound in the Dutch East Indies, it was a critical success. However, Balink's main interest was in feature films. All feature films released in the Dutch East Indies between 1934 and 1935 had been directed by The Teng Chun, based on Chinese mythology or martial arts, and targeted at low-class audiences, generally ethnic Chinese. Balink intended to reach an upper-class audience.