The German Cinema – 1895 to the Present Day

15.10.23 – 15.9.24

  • Völklinger Ironworks World Heritage Site

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    Further Information Tickets

The Völklinger Ironworks World Heritage Site in Saarland is a unique historical site: it is the only fully preserved ironworks in the world that dates back to the heyday of industrialisation. In close cooperation with the Völklingen World Heritage Site, we are screening a retrospective of German cinema in the Blower Hall, which extends across more than 6,000 square metres. Giant screens, monitors and numerous exhibits offer a comprehensive overview of German film history.

From its early days around 1900, the First World War and the Weimar Republic of the 1920s, through National Socialism, the Second World War and the film culture of a country divided into FRG and GDR, to reunified German film after 1990: this exhibition reveals a panorama of the 20th and 21st centuries in Germany broken down into ten distinct chapters. Over 100 projections on screens present striking extracts from films from different periods and genres, and 30 monitors enable visitors to investigate them in further depth.

Visitors are thus able to discover the influence of Robert Wiene’s ‘The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari’ (1920) on Tim Burton’s ‘Edward Scissorhands’ (1990) just as much as the aftereffects of Lotte Reininger’s early animation film ‘The Adventures of Prince Achmed’ on David Yates’ ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows’ (2010). The exhibition also presents the work of directors, screenwriters, actors, composers, set designers, camera people and producers, and offers fascinating insights into how a film studio functions, the film industry in general and various production processes.

You can find more information about the exhibition here.

Eröffnung

What the papers say

‘The exhibition is a race through the ages, a gigantic multimedia spectacle in a historic industrial setting – a great show!’
Susanne Freitag-Carteron, ZDF heute journal

 

‘The new exhibition in the Völklinger Ironworks World Heritage Site is huge – and a huge hit.’
Tobias Kessler, Saarbrücker Zeitung

 

‘…and so visitors are taken on a journey through time: from silent movies to our digital present. […] German Cinema is not just the largest exhibition the World Heritage Site has ever housed, it is also the Kinemathek’s largest outside of Berlin.’
Martin Brinkmann, Saarländischer Rundfunk

Partner

A cooperation between the Völklinger Ironworks World Heritage Site and the Deutsche Kinemathek