Remembrance of German Things Past

From Berlin, two ini­tia­tives from the Deutsche Kinemathek/Museum for Film and Tele­vi­sion.

The first is a col­lec­tion of pri­vate pho­tos and home movies of the Berlin Wall, its even­tu­al col­lapse, and the reuni­fi­ca­tion that fol­lowed. It’s a time­ly col­lec­tion, espe­cial­ly giv­en that the 20th anniver­sary of the Wal­l’s fall is com­ing in Novem­ber. Not only do the images and films encour­age the view­er to reflect on free­dom, but the items found in the col­lec­tion are open to tag­ging, most car­ry Cre­ative Com­mons licens­es, and the online exhib­it is built on inno­v­a­tive open source soft­ware from Col­lec­tive Access. Some of the most pop­u­lar images in the col­lec­tion can be found here.

The sec­ond is a new por­tal that the Kine­math­ek has built with Aus­tri­an, Czech, and French part­ners list­ing infor­ma­tion about more than 3,500 films–including clas­sics from Char­lie Chap­lin and Frank Capra–that were pre­sumed to be lost for­ev­er. The Ger­mans have seed­ed the list with infor­ma­tion about the 37 most sought-after Ger­man films, fea­tur­ing sev­er­al from Fritz Lang, Ernst Lubitsch, and F.W. Mur­nau. All that’s miss­ing is a poster with a pic­ture: “Have you seen this film?”

Peter B. Kauf­man comes to us from Intel­li­gent Tele­vi­sion.