Film Documentation

While moving images are arguably our most vivid and direct connection to the past, archives of moving images are also storehouses for the future, depositories of “history in real-time,” whose social relevance ultimately derives from their being put to ever new forms of cultural usage. The FAA is committed to being an “active archive,” for it is only when the collections ‒ preserved at considerable expenditure and effort ‒ are made available to the public that the concept of a cinematic heritage really comes alive. Numerous research projects, publications from our in-house press and the various educational activities on offer at the METRO Kinokulturhaus are all expressions of the FAA’s inclusive view of what defines a contemporary film archive.

Just as questions regarding conservation, restoration and scholarly analysis are intricately interwoven with one another, so an engaged conception of archival work is inseparable from involvement with ambitious projects, as evidenced by the house’s various film programs, books, DVDs and, soon-to-be, online publications. Visitors to the Study Center at our Augarten location can readily access from there all the collections of the Film Archive; the collections are digitalized little by little by our technical staff so as to make them more easily available.