German film archive

The name of German Film Archive was from 1952 to 1956, the Film Archive of the German Film Institute - DIF in Wiesbaden .

The German Film Archive emerged from the DIF (formerly: Archive for Film Studies ), in which it has been an independent department since 1952. According to the wishes of its founder - Hanns Wilhelm Lavies - the archive was supposed to take over the function of the Reichsfilmarchiv , whose holdings were lost in the course of the Second World War . Since Lavies had put the new collection together largely on a personal initiative, he continued to run the DIF like a private institution, which led to considerable conflicts with the film industry that financed the institute. Since it was not possible to properly store the sensitive archive material in the institute's premises, part of the film stock had to be relocated to the Federal Archives founded in 1954 .

A systematic screening and preservation of the DIF copies did not begin until 1958. However, the ongoing disputes about the financing of the institute, its sponsorship by the film industry and / or the public sector and the resulting property claims led to a separation from DIF on May 29, 1956 and film archive. The film archive was converted into an association “Das Deutsche Filmarchiv” and joined the FIAF as such .

Web links

• www.deutsches-filminstitut.de The film archive in the confusion of the early years

Coordinates: 50 ° 3 ′ 20 ″  N , 8 ° 17 ′ 22 ″  E