German Film : From the Archives of the Deutsche Kinemathek

From Carl Meyer to Wener Herzog to Christian Petzold—a record of German film history through the lens of one remarkable archive

This lavishly illustrated volume tells the story of German film based on the collection holdings of the Deutsche Kinemathek. This impressive archive houses several hundred thousand photographs, 25,000 posters, 26,500 films and approximately 20,000 costumes and architectural sketches. A few standouts include the entirety of Marlene Dietrich’s estate, donations by Werner Herzog and the TV documentary filmmaker Georg Stefan Troller, as well as film scripts by Carl Mayer and Christian Petzold.
German Film traces the nation’s cinematic history from its beginnings in 1895 to the present day, illustrating the artistic, technical, political and social developments that have shaped its course. Twelve chapters, organized by decade, and more than 450 texts present famous and lesser-known films. The volume pays tribute to the filmmaking techniques popularized in the country as well as to all those personalities whose creativity established German film’s diversity. Around 2,700 objects from all areas of the collection illustrate a period of 130 years and form an overwhelming overview of the Kinemathek’s archive holdings.