Deutsche Kinemathek

Collecting, preserving, cataloguing, presenting and explaining the audiovisual heritage - these have been the tasks of the Deutsche Kinemathek since its opening in 1963.

Its remit covers all matters related to film and television history such as materials on Heinz Rühmann, Werner Herzog or TV documentary maker Georg Stefan Troller, but also significant screenplays, including scripts by authors such as Carl Mayer or Christian Petzold. It also includes a film archive holding copies of more than 13,000 films, and there are over 25,000 films on video which are available for viewing. Academics and journalists use the diverse holdings for their research and searches. Film copies are viewed on-site and loaned to cinemas. 4,000 productions from 50 years of television history in the East and West can be viewed in the programme gallery. One of the largest specialist libraries in Europe is also available to visitors in the Filmhaus. A particular focus of the Kinemathek is on film in exile. The Deutsche Kinemathek stores over one million photos, 16,000 posters and 20,000 costume and architectural drawings. Since autumn 2000 some of these have been displayed at the Filmhaus am Potsdamer Platz. The permanent exhibition, including the futuristic set designs for Fritz Lang's METROPOLIS, Marlene Dietrich's make-up case or the costumes from Wolfgang Petersen's DAS BOOT, reveals something of the fascination of German film history. An equivalent exhibition focussing on German television history was then opened in 2006 - resulting in a unique combination of both media under one roof.

Since 1977, the Deutsche Kinemathek has organised the annual Retrospective and Homage events at the Berlin International Film Festival. It has also made a name for itself through numerous publications on the past and present of film and television, through special exhibitions, and through symposia featuring distinguished participants and other events.

Competences and priorities in the area of long-term preservation

The film archive of the Deutsche Kinemathek possesses almost all AV media formats used in the private and professional sectors. Long-term preservation and archiving solutions need to be defined for each of these formats.
The Deutsche Kinemathek has been actively involved in the nestor Media WG for several years now. This includes staging conferences on various topics. Appropriate IT infrastructures have been established, including a partnership with the Zuse Institute Berlin (ZIB) on the basis of a cooperation agreement. The technological framework is therefore already in place (bitstream preservation). Further fundamental projects (archiving, archive formats and format validation, workflows) are currently being planned.

Contact

Jürgen Keiper
Deutsche Kinemathek – Museum für Film und Fernsehen
Potsdamer Straße 2
10785 Berlin
jkeiper@deutsche-kinemathek.de
http://www.deutsche-kinemathek.de
Phone +49 30 300 903-0
Fax +49 30 300 903-13