Realities and Visions of Recovering Europe. Documentary Film in Postwar Visual Culture.
The reconstruction of Europe shaped the entire continent in the first decade after the Second World War. This online exhibition, which is available in five languages, tells a visual history of the post-war period through documentary films: They served as a testimony, political instrument and far-reaching means of communication during the period of transition. Audiovisual sources such as newsreels, short documentaries and amateur films are presented in the exhibition alongside posters and photos and are accompanied by the memories of numerous contemporary witnesses from Czechoslovakia, France, Germany and Italy. The documents provide insights into a decade that shaped the world as we know it today.
The exhibition was created within the framework of the EU project “ViCTOR-E – Visual Culture of Trauma, Obliteration and Reconstruction in Post-WW II Europe” led by Goethe University Frankfurt am Main and curated by researchers from Goethe University, the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, the Università degli Studi di Udine, Italy and the Université Paris 1 – Panthéon-Sorbonne.
