Film:ReStored_02. The Film Heritage Festival

The film heritage festival Film:ReStored will take place for the second time at the Filmhaus on Potsdamer Platz. It is organized by the Deutsche Kinemathek on behalf of the Deutscher Kinematheksverbund (association of German cinematheques). The festival dates have been scheduled to correlate with UNESCO’s “World Day for Audiovisual Heritage” on October 27, 2017, which is the same day that this year’s Kinopreis des Kinematheksverbundes will be awarded.

The four-day festival Film:ReStored_02 premieres digitally restored films. Associated lectures and workshop talks will devote themselves to questions surrounding the digitalization of film heritage. This year, copyright holders and authors ‒ as partners and participants of the digitalization projects ‒ are the focus of the debates. Archives would only be able to advance the digitalization of film heritage in a very limited way without the cooperation of the license holders. Contact points between archives and active copyright holders are diverse. The source materials are stored in the archives and the technical expertise required for dealing with the historical film material can be found there as well. However, without the consent and support of the copyright holders, these resources pertaining to archival works can only be conditionally used and further developed.

Where do the objectives and means of archives and license holders overlap during the digitalization of film heritage? The integration of living copyright holders and authors (for example directors and camera crews) into the digitalization process, can be extremely valuable for treatment that is true to the original, but it can also produce areas of friction. The desire for a creative revision, for instance, may be opposed to scholarly or archivist standards. Then again, making different versions could also be a way to do justice to divergent requirements. Can common guidelines or a “happy medium” be found?

The film selection for the festival is based on interconnections that relate to these questions and was made in cooperation with the copyright holders and authors. Thirteen films in all will be screened, predominantly as digital premieres.