Creating diversity
Diverse provenances enrich our understanding of the past and promote cultural diversity in the world of film. Each source contributes its unique history and perspective, providing a multifaceted view of historical and cultural events.
The DEFA Foundation is an incorporated non-profit foundation. It was established by the Federal Government of Germany on December 15, 1998. DEFA film stocks, considered an important part of Germany's cultural heritage, were assigned to the DEFA Foundation as capital for Foundation operations.
Deutsche Film AG (DEFA) was the film production company of the German Democratic Republic (GDR). It was founded in Potsdam-Babelsberg in 1946 and had several studios. By 1992, it had produced some 2,500 newsreels and periodicals, 2,000 documentaries, 950 animated films, 730 feature films and 450 fictional short films as well as 6,700 dubbed versions of foreign films.
DW (Deutsche Welle) is Germany's international broadcaster. As an independent media outlet, they provide unbiased news and information in 32 languages around the world so that people can form their own opinions.
At the end of the 1980s, RIAS acquired the archive of filmmaker Ernst Wollenberg (production period: 1950-1981). DW later digitised this archive.
The German film production company Cinecentrum was founded in 1962 as a subsidiary of Studio Hamburg. The company produces documentaries and fictional formats for public and private TV broadcasters in Germany. Since 2023 Cinecentrum is part of Doclights GmbH.
The Historiathek is a film archive on historical topics. It combines film material of the 20th century that has been digitised in high resolution (HD or 2K) in various US archives.
The Katholische Filmwerk (KFW) was founded in Rottenburg near Stuttgart in 1953. The main purpose of this foundation was to promote Catholic film production in the individual dioceses of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) and to provide a range of films for Catholic educational and community work. To this end, as many church film venues as possible were to be registered, suitable films from various distributors, including the screening rights, were to be acquired and accompanying material for film screenings was to be compiled. The selection of films was based on Christian values.
The Katholische Filmwerk produced the Catholic monthly newsreel "Zeitschau"/"Spiegel der Zeit" from 1953 to 1962.
rbb media GmbH was founded in 1955 as a subsidiary of Sender Freies Berlin (SFB). The merger of SFB with Ostdeutscher Rundfunk Brandenburg (ORB) led to the creation of rbb in 2003 as a public service broadcaster for the states of Berlin and Brandenburg. One of the tasks of rbb media is the distribution of the GDR television programme, which is kept in the German Broadcasting Archives (DRA). The DRA has been archiving and documenting a significant part of Germany's audiovisual and audio heritage since 1952. This includes, among other things, all radio broadcasts since 1929 as well as the holdings of the GDR's Deutsches Fernsehfunk/Television from the period between 1952 and 1991.
Das Vietnam Film Institute (VFI) bewahrt auf über 80.000 Filmrollen das audiovisuelle Erbe Vietnams: Spielfilme, Wochenschauen, Dokumentar- und Animationsfilme, die von den 1940er Jahren bis in die Gegenwart im Auftrag der staatlichen Filmproduktion Vietnams entstanden sind.
Das Vietnam Film Institute wurde 1979 auf Beschluss der vietnamesischen Regierung als Vietnam Film Documentation Institute gegründet. Ziel dieser Gründung war die Sammlung und Bewahrung aller von staatlichen Einrichtungen produzierten Filme. Dazu gehören vor allem Dokumentarfilme und Wochenschauen, die im Auftrag der Kommunistischen Partei während des Vietnamkrieges produziert wurden. Als nationales Filmarchiv Vietnams verwahrt das VFI neben Dokumentationen auch Spiel- und Animationsfilme von staatlichen und privaten Studios, Rohmaterial und verschiedenste Begleitdokumente zu Filmen.
An seinem Hauptsitz in Hanoi bewahrt das VFI heute vietnamesische und ausländische Filme auf über 80.000 Filmrollen (16mm und 35mm) und ca. 20.000 Videotapes, die nach und nach restauriert und digitalisiert werden. Die beiden Filmstudios des Vietnam Film Institute, das Ngoc Khanh Film Studio und das Saigon Film Studio, dokumentieren zudem bis heute wichtige politische, kulturelle und wirtschaftliche Ereignisse und erweitern den Filmbestand des VFI beständig.
