Jan Vanderheyden

Who was Jan Vanderheyden?

Jan Vanderheyden was a Belgian film producer and director known for the Flemish comedies he made in the 1930s and 1940s. During the German occupation of Belgium between 1940 and 1944, Vanderheyden produced four of the six films made by Belgian companies in a market that was otherwise flooded by imported German films. Vanderheyden hoped to benefit from the Flamenpolitik instituted by the Germans, as Belgian cinema had traditionally been dominated by English and French language films. Vanderheyden made his last film in 1942, after which Belgian feature film production was suspended due to an increasing shortage of Film stock.

He was married to the German producer/director Edith Kiel with whom he frequently worked.