Landesfilmarchiv Bremen /
State Film Archive Bremen

Große Weidestr. 4-16
D-28195 Bremen
Tel.: +49 (0)421 361 7845
Fax: +49 (0)421 361 7846
E-Mail: diethelm.knauf@lisbvn.bremen.de
www.landesfilmarchiv.de


Contact: Dr. Diethelm Knauf
Opening hours: By Arrangement

General
The State Film Archive Bremen is an agency of the federal state of Bremen and belongs to the Landesinstitut für Schule (State Education Department). The Archive is dedicated to researching, collecting, archiving and conserving film for the future. We have a comprehensive understanding of the term "film"; to us it is both a product and evidence of culture, an artistic form, a social institution, an economic factor and a technical medium. The emphasis of our collection and archival activity is on the political, economic and cultural development of Bremen and northern Germany in general. Finding film documents is a combination of systematic research and coincidence, but we also carry out enquiries in companies, public authorities, government agencies etc. One of our major concerns is to make our inventory available to the general public. Among those who use the State Film Archive Bremen are TV stations and filmmakers in search of historical material for documentaries and news stories; scholars using film as historical sources, community centers, history groups and, of course, schools. We cooperate on numerous projects, including evening events, with all of the above mentioned users.


Table of Contents:

• Bremensia
  
  
• Klemens Lindenau Archive
  
  
• Archive of Visual Teaching Material
  
  
• Media Productions
  
  

Currently there are several thousand film documents on file in the State Film Archive. The oldest document is from 1910 and shows Kaiser Wilhelm II visiting the market square of Bremen. Particularly well documented areas are: economic and industrial history (e.g. the history of the companies Norddeutscher Lloyd and AG Weser, the fishing industries and harbor development, the automobile industry); portraits of the city and its development; Bremen during the Third Reich; the American enclave at Bremen and Bremerhaven; Bremen in the 1960s. In addition we have an extensive stock of private film documents from the 1920s through the 1980s which show the changes of everyday culture and ways of life. Professional filmmakers often concentrate on the sights around the market square, the Weser, and the important industries. It is only through private film documents that we get impressions of neighborhoods outside the city center.
As Bremer companies and merchants had intensive trading relations with all parts of the world we also possess early films (1920s and 1930s) from Australia, New Zealand, Bali, Borneo and Sri Lanka. Some highlights: shots of emigrants in the steerage of North German Lloyd steamship "Dresden" by the writer Manfred Hausmann (1928); the construction and maiden voyage of the legendary steamer Bremen - Queen of the Seven Seas (1928/29); a private tour through the industrial exhibition "Bremen - The Key to Germany" (1938); a portrait of Bremen from 1955 "Irgendwann begegnen wir uns" ("We'll Meet Some Time"); films from the 1960s promoting Bremen as an attractive economic site; a private film document showing the unloading of the first container in Bremen's overseas port 1967.

The State Film Archive presents features on its web site using extensive film clips. The following are presently available: an overview of Bremen's film history with examples of the work of prominent Bremen filmmakers (Helmut Oestmann, "Bauern im Teufelsmoor" ("Peasants Working the Peat Bogs"); F.W. Bauer, "Vegesack - die Stadt am Hohen Ufer" ("Vegesack - the City at the Shore"); Dietrich W. Dreyer, "König Hering" ("King Herring"); Carl Hans Plock, "Der Monarch" ("The Tramp"); Heinz Beuermann, "Die Dampflok stirbt aus" ("The Steam Locomotive Withers Away") and clips giving an insight into the archival film stock. We have grouped the films by subject: "city center", "harbor", "industry", "everyday life" and "urban impressions"; in addition we have selected specific examples from the 1930s and the 1960s that represent the respective period or reflect an especially impressive or extraordinary way films were made.
One of our major goals is to make our film inventory easily accessible to the interested public. Thus we have edited original documents and produced videos and DVDs on topics including "Bremen from 1871 to 1945"; "Bremen from 1945 to 1989"; "Bremen from the Third Reich to the Wirtschaftswunder"; "The History of the Bremen Ports"; "Traveling with the Norddeutsche Lloyd". We organize film evenings and other cultural events and workshops with schools, community centers, clubs and businesses. We also host a regular program on a local public TV channel.

Klemens Lindenau ran his Kultur- und Lehrfilminstitut (Institute for Cultural and Educational Film) in Delmenhorst, near Bremen, in the 1950s and 1960s. Starting in 1927, he worked for the UFA in Berlin and was also able to produce movies and cultural documentaries during the Third Reich. He became managing executive of Herold Films in Berlin in 1946 and received a license to produce cultural films in 1949. He frequently worked together with Delmenhorst-born cameraman Heinz Bakenköhler, who later worked with the Zweite Deutsche Fernsehen (Second German Television), one of the major German TV stations. The Lindenau Film Institute showed many of its cultural documentaries in international film competitions (e.g. in Berlin in 1953; in Caracas, Venezuela, in the same year, where his documentary "Stephan Lochner - ein Maler zu Köln am Rhein" ("Stephan Lochner - A Painter from Cologne") won an "Ehrenplakette" (an honorary medal); the Mannheim Week of Cultural and Documentary Film 1959; and as late as 1966 his film "Ein weites Feld" won an award at the international triennial of Film for Work and Industry in Belgium). Many of his films were classified as "Besonders Wertvoll" (Especially Valuable) (i.e. educational). Some of his films on maritime topics were shot on behalf of the Bremerhaven Fischereibetriebsgesellschaft (Fishing Port Authority). Those were, for example, "Die Islandfischer" ("The Icelandic Fisherman"), "Seefische" ("Marine Fish"), and "Hochseefischer" ("Offshore Fisherman"). Lindenau's cultural and educational films were often shown as feature films in the cinema. If they were considered "valuable" or "especially valuable", cinema owners could avoid paying taxes. The State Film Archive obtained all of Klemens Lindenau's equipment and his complete works.

A special department of the State Film Archive is the so-called Didaktische Archiv. The department collects and restores old visual teaching materials such as silent and sound motion pictures, large-sized glass slides, miniature photographs, different sound carrier systems, diagrams and maps; all media that was offered for teaching purposes and provided by Reichsstelle für Film und Bild in Wissenschaft und Unterricht (RWU; the Reich Department for Film and Pictures in Science and Education) from 1934 to 1945 and later, in the Federal Republic of Germany, by the Institution for Film and Pictures in Science and Education (FWU). All of this material is accessible for research and teaching purposes. We have an almost complete collection of films produced and distributed by the RWU. Correspondingly, one focus of our work is on how media was used in schools in the Third Reich. We hope to publish a research study on this topic in due time.

Given the special concern of the State Film Archive to provide the public with easy access to its inventory we have produced and issued the following videos and DVDs in cooperation with the production company Docarts Medien and the Bremensia publisher Edition Temmen:

• Bremen 1871 - 1945. A Film Chronicle (1998); VHS-Video, German
  
• Bremen 1945 - 1989. A Film Chronicle (1999); VHS-Video, German
  
• The Bremen Ports. A Film Chronicle (2000); VHS-Video, German
  
• Jantjes und Kantjes. Heringsfang in alten Filmen (2000); VHS-Video, German (Herring Fishing in the 1930s)
  
• From the Third Reich to the Wirtschaftwunder (2001); VHS-Video, German
  
• Auf großer Fahrt. Reisen mit dem Norddeutschen Lloyd (2002); VHS-Video, German (Traveling with the North German Lloyd)
  
• From the Third Reich to the Wirtschaftswunder. Bremen 1933 - 1955 (2004). DVD, German/English.
  

This program is rounded out by the publication Diethelm Knauf/Jochen Cordes (eds), Bildung - Schule - Medien. Eine Festschrift für Rudi Geisler, Bremen: Edition Temmen 2004.