Archive notice: This article was originally published on January 23, 2013. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
In a report, the EU Commission had criticised the fact that around one million hours of historical film material are locked away in archives. And that only 1.5 percent of Europe’s film heritage had already been digitised and made accessible to the public—meaning that some important films from the analogue era could be lost without timely digitisation.
The Bundestag Committee on Culture and Media then decided, with the votes of the governing parliamentary group, that the German federal government should present a cost estimate for the mandatory archiving and digitisation of all German films. Together with the Association of German Cinematheques, an inventory catalogue is now to be established, stating where films that need to be archived are located and in what format. In addition, the government is to examine what funds are available for this from the federal budget.
The EU Commission hopes that further research into scanning techniques can reduce digitisation costs. The Left Party parliamentary group in the federal government demanded that 6 million from the federal budget be made available for this purpose, while the film industry and the film-producing advertising sector should each provide the same amount again. The financing proposal of introducing an earmarked levy of five cents per cinema ticket sold to ensure the long-term preservation of film material was also made.
With 3D, HFR and extra-length surcharges already being charged on cinema tickets and admission prices having been driven drastically upwards in this way, these five cents would certainly no longer be the deciding factor for audiences in why they no longer visit the cinema.
The digitisation campaign is also intended to expand the offering of the Europeana online library: http://www.europeana.eu/portal/
Image: Kevin Northover
