History
History
The Deutsche Kinemathek opened in February 1963. Its founding executive was the film director Gerhard Lamprecht (1897–1974), whose collection of films, documents, and equipment, dated back to his childhood and formed the basis of the new institute. His collection was first purchased by the state of Berlin and then handed over to the Kinemathek for preservation and use.
Collection and exhibition work
Over the following decades, the Kinemathek expanded its activities. Lamprecht’s multi-volume catalog ‘Deutsche Stummfilme’ (Silent Motion Pictures) became a definitive work. The Kinemathek’s collections steadily grew as a result of acquisitions and takeovers, and these were made available via exhibitions to a wider audience. The first film history exhibition, “Von Skladanowsky bis Caligari”, opened in 1966 in the cramped location of Schlüterstraße 41. Guest locations hosted further exhibitions, such as the Filmbühne Wien (on the director Richard Oswald, 1970), the former Hotel Esplanade (“… Film … Stadt … Kino … Berlin”, 1987), and the Martin-Gropius-Bau (“Kino – Movie – Cinema”, 1995).
In 2000, the new building on Potsdamer Platz provided the Kinemathek with a space in which to install a permanent exhibition. The estate of Marlene Dietrich, which was acquired in 1993, was part of this presentation and remains one of the Kinemathek’s most extensive collections to date. In addition, special exhibitions over the years have made it possible to explore other influential film personalities in depth (Fritz Lang, 2001; Ruth Leuwerik, 2004; Hildegard Knef, 2005; Martin Scorsese, 2013; Bernd Eichinger, 2013; Ken Adam 2014) as well as production companies (“The Ufa”, 2017). Over the years, exhibitions have also focused on various topics like production design, psychology in film, and science fiction film. Several exhibitions for children and young adults as well as installations in cooperation with filmmakers like Ulrike Ottinger and Thomas Heise have complemented the Kinemathek’s offers to the public.
By 2024, the Kinemathek’s permanent exhibition attracted over two million visitors to its site on Potsdamer Platz. This continuously updated tour through German film history delighted many visitors: up to 3,000 people a day came to the exhibition during the last week alone. A permanent exhibition on the history of television was added in 2006 in liaison with the Television Media Library, which made available its holdings of 13,000 German television productions. A highlight was the Loriot exhibit on the occasion of the actor’s 85th birthday, which drew almost 100,000 visitors in 2008/09. Many exhibitions toured the world, including one featuring the work of director Martin Scorsese that traveled to seven further destinations and attracted over half a million visitors.
In 2025, the Kinemathek relocated to E-Werk, where it will stay until a new film institute reaches completion. In E-Werk, the Kinemathek will have its own small cinema for the first time. It has been distributing films worldwide for many years. Its holdings comprise around 22,000 titles, including silent films, avant-garde films, documentary works, productions by the German Film and Television Academy Berlin (DFFB), and nearly the entire DEFA archive.
The Kinemathek has curated the Retrospective section of the Berlin International Film Festival since 1977, starting with a dedication to Marlene Dietrich. The program in 2025 showed German genre films from the 1970s under the title “Wild, Weird and Bloody.” The Berlinale Classics section has presented recently restored films to a wider audience since 2013. Additional events at the Kinemathek include homages to film history, colloquia, conferences, and the Film Restored film heritage festival that has been running since 2016. The Kinemathek also produces two sets of publications: the first, ‘Fernsehen – Geschichte – Ästhetik’ (Television – History – Aesthetics), focuses on television topics and the second, ‘Film & Schrift’ (Film & Text), is dedicated to the history of German film criticism. Accompanying books have been issued for most exhibitions and retrospectives too. An almost 1,000-page compendium with the title ‘Der deutsche Film – Aus den Archiven der Deutschen Kinemathek’ (The German Film — From the Archives of the Deutsche Kinemathek) was published in 2024.
Collection and archive work
The heart of the Kinemathek collection consists of over 600 personal archives that contain the estates and material of filmmakers from almost all professional sections of the industry, and from scholars, companies, and institutions. The Deutsche Kinemathek also manages the archives of renowned contemporary filmmakers. In recent years, the estate of Fatih Akin, several material deliveries from Andres Veiel, and individual screenplays by Nora Fingscheidt have been added to the collection. Our archive materials serve as a basis for exhibitions, publications, scholarly papers, film journalism, and film criticism. They are supplemented by millions of photos, thousands of screenplays, posters, programs of series, advertising materials, sound files, textiles, 3D objects, and biographical and filmographic documents. The Kinemathek preserves audiovisual material for 80,000 film titles. Its restoration and digitization work contributes widely to the preservation and accessibility of historical film works.
The technology archive includes historical recording and projection apparatus, film production and editing gear, and cinema equipment. Sketches, designs, and models illustrate the development of film architecture, including the work of production designer Ken Adam, whose style was influential in numerous James Bond films. Adam and his family were forced to flee Germany in 1934. His story exemplifies many refugee filmmakers commemorated by the Kinemathek, which holds one of the world’s most comprehensive collections of exiled filmmakers, including materials from Curt Siodmak, Elisabeth Bergner, Erich Pommer, and many others. The correspondence of the Hollywood-based Paul Kohner Agency, which was acquired in 1988 and comprises more than 160,000 pages, is a particularly significant and indispensable source for exile research.
The Kinemathek library, the backbone for film and television researchers, comprises over 95,000 works, including 150 contemporary German and international magazines (also on microfilm) and an extensive range of film titles on DVD.
Collection and exchange
The Deutsche Kinemathek offers a wide range of educational services — from animated film workshops for children to city walks and workshop discussions with specialist groups. Together, these provide exciting and surprising encounters with the world of the motion picture.
Since 1966, the Kinemathek has been a member of the Fédération Internationale des Archives du Film (FIAF) and the Association des Cinémathèques Européennes (ACE) and participates in the international exchange of knowledge and film material. In 2027, the Kinemathek will host the FIAF Congress in Berlin. On a national level, the Kinemathek co-founded the Kinematheksverbund (Association of German Cinematheques) in 1978, together with the Deutsches Institut für Filmkunde (German Institute of Film Studies: now known as the DFF – German Film Institute & Film Museum) and the film archive of the Bundesarchiv (German Federal Archive).
The Kinemathek is part of the Media Libraries Network and the Arbeitskreis selbständiger Kulturinstitut e.V. (AsKI). Its work can be supported by becoming a member of the Förderkreis der Deutsche Kinemathek e.V.
