Photo Archive

The photo archive contains approximately 2.3 million photos and slides of national and international film productions. In addition to photographs from the early years – from such classics as Robert Wiene’s DAS CABINET DES DR. CALIGARI and Sergei M. Eisenstein’s PANZERKREUZER POTEMKIN – it also holds images of current releases.

Close contacts with distributors and publishers ensure that the stock is constantly expanded. The latest German and foreign productions are often added to the collections even before their theatrical release – since 2000 mainly in digital form. Photographs of feature films released in Germany after 1945 are available in almost their entirety, making our photo archive the first port of call for museums, publishers, television companies, magazines and newspapers.

In addition to the original theatrical stills from German silent films, the photo archive also holds a special collection of “forbidden” stills, i.e. stills whose publication was prohibited by the censorship authorities of the Weimar Republic. In addition, there is an exceptionally comprehensive collection of films from the Nazi era, although this material is only available for research purposes.

The extensive collection of portrait and celebrity postcards dates back to the 1910s and includes a large number of dedications and autographs. If you are looking for visual material on the making of films, film technology, studios, costumes, cinemas and cinema advertising, the special collections are the place to go.

Besides indexing, the archive also provides for the preservation of the photographs. The valuable holdings are stored in acid-free materials according to conservation guidelines and in the archive’s own cold storage facilities.