Bendestorf Film Museum

The Bendestorf Film Museum in Bendestorf in Lower Saxony is one of seven film museums in Germany and is located on the historical site of the Bendestorf Film Studios .

history

After the end of the Second World War , the Bendestorfer film studios developed into the largest in the western zone at that time. From 1947 to 2005, almost 100 full-length films and series were produced here: Works such as Die Sünderin with Hildegard Knef , Ave Maria with Zarah Leander and Heideschulmeister Uwe Karsten with Claus Holm were created. In 2011, a support association was founded to run the film museum, which has been exhibiting its collection in Makens Huus since 1990 . In 2017 the museum was reopened in the rooms of the former film studio.

Film studios Bendestorf

The Bendestorf film studios came into being on April 1, 1947, when Rolf Meyer received the British license to found a film production company and founded the Junge Film Union as one of the first film companies in West Germany after the Second World War.

Rolf Meyer was a former UFA employee and ended up in Bendestorf as a refugee. Since he was not politically burdened, the British occupiers made him mayor and allowed him to found his production company. The production costs were financed by a meat manufacturer from Hamburg , who invested two million Reichsmarks in the film industry in 1947. In 1948 Meyer began to build studios on the 13,000 square meter site with the architect Carlos Dudek . The first feature film shot here is Menschen in Gottes Hand , which premiered in Hamburg- Harvestehude in 1948 .

The most famous film was 1951 Die Sünderin with Hildegard Knef. Contrary to popular belief, it was not Hildegard Knef's nude scene that was scandalized after the film was released, but the theming of wild marriage, prostitution, rape, euthanasia and suicide.

In 1951, Meyer was unable to look after his company for several months after a car accident. On November 6, 1952, bankruptcy proceedings against the Junge Film Union were opened before the Stade Regional Court and the public prosecutor's office investigated Meyer for delaying bankruptcy. The publisher Axel Springer , who at the time owned a holiday home in Bendestorf, paid the bail for release from custody. Rolf Meyer died in 1963 in the neighboring village of Todtglüsingen . After the bankruptcy, Horst Fink von Fink-Film acquired the site and international productions used the Bendestorfer studios to shoot there.

The film studios proved to be too small for large feature film productions in the course of the 1960s. Television productions followed, mostly television shows for public and later also private television stations, and later commercials. The last film was shot in the Bendestorf film studio in summer 2012. The nickname Heide-Hollywood results from this part of the village's history, which brought film stars like Marika Rökk , Hildegard Knef or Zarah Leander to Bendestorf.

In 2014 it became known that after an unsuccessful search for investors, the demolition of the film studios was planned. The demolition work began in 2018 to enable the construction of 30 luxury apartments. All that remains is one wing of the building that houses the film museum.

exhibition

The film museum has an area of approx. 800 m² with exhibition space, a producer cinema, media library, archive and training rooms. The film technology of the early post-war years will be shown, such as cameras, spotlights, cutting tables and other accessories. Posters, production pictures, original scripts and autograph pictures by the actors complete the exhibition. More than 50 films shot in Bendestorf can be viewed in the video room after prior registration.

Movie projector
Information board about the director Rolf Meyer
In the exhibition
Production design

documentation

When Hollywood lay in the heather - the film studios of Bendestorf ; scenic television documentary (D 2016, approx. 45 min); Script / Direction: Susanne Brahms, Matthias Greving, first broadcast: June 8, 2016 (NDR)