Mission Statement
The DFF – Deutsches Filminstitut & Filmmuseum is a leading, forward-thinking international film heritage organization. We are a pioneer in preserving and sharing film culture with a worldwide public, uniquely combining museum, cinema, archives and collections, festivals, digital platforms, research and digitization projects and numerous educational programs. Based in the diverse and dynamic city of Frankfurt, Germany, we actively work toward intercultural understanding, cultivating connections to institutions and initiatives in the film arts and sciences around the world. We link the history, materiality and meaning of film to the digital future.
Promoting film culture, in close collaboration with our audiences, is our mission. As a team of more than 200, we bring our professional knowledge and infinite passion for film to all that we do. For us, everything is film, and film is everything.
Legal Status, Members and Supporters
The DFF – Deutsches Filminstitut & Filmmuseum e.V. is an eingetragener Verein (non-profit association) that is institutionally supported by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, the State of Hesse, the cities of Frankfurt am Main and Wiesbaden, the public broadcasters and Beta Film GmbH. Dr. Ina Hartwig is the chairwoman of the administrative board, which together with the executive board determines the framework conditions for the institute’s work. The executive board, which is elected for a term of three years and heads the DFF, consists of the Director Ellen Harrington and the Frankfurt attorney and notary Aurélio de Sousa. Under the chairmanship of René Parmantier, the Patrons Circle supports the diverse tasks of our institution.
The members of the Administrative Board are:
Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media; Beta Film GmbH, Degeto-Film GmbH; Hessian Ministry of Science and the Arts; City of Wiesbaden; The Rainer Werner Fassbinder Foundation Inc., Gemeinnützige Nachlaßstiftung GmbH; City of Frankfurt am Main; Spitzenorganisation der Filmwirtschaft (SPIO); Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen (ZDF).
Hilmar Hoffmann (1925 – 2018)
“In the 40 years of its history, the cinema of the Deutsches Filmmuseum has courageously resisted creeping commercialization; it continues to show ‘difficult’ films, but also films that give the individual ‘eye fodder,’ excite their nerves, stimulate their mind, and open up spaces of experience; films that persuade.”
Hilmar Hoffmann
As a film historian, theorist (“Culture for All”) and cultural politician, who also set internationally respected standards in Frankfurt as the city’s head of culture from 1970 to 1990, Hilmar Hoffmann had recognized the public educational mandate in a media society long before anyone else. The film museum, “House for Film”, on Frankfurt’s Schaumainkai owes nothing less than its existence to Hilmar Hoffmann. One of his first political decisions as the new head of the Department of Culture on the Main was to found the Kommunales Kino, which opened in 1971. His program of using the cinema to educate people about cinema has lost none of its relevance.
As the long-standing chairman of the board of directors of the Deutsches Filminstitut, Hilmar Hoffmann was instrumental in promoting the integration of the formerly municipal film museum into the Filminstitut, which took place in 2006. The entire team of the DFF looks back with gratitude on many years of fruitful and impulsive collaboration.
