Project Details
Projekt
History of the Documentary Film in Germany 1945 - 2005
Subject Area
Theatre and Media Studies
Term
from 2012 to 2021
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 209827337
The aim of this research project is to conduct a systematic study of German non-fiction films produced during the period 1945 - 2005. The results will be published in a 3-volume publication (1945 - 1961/62, 1962 - 1989/90 and 1990 - 2005) as the 2005 published books on the earlier research of the period 1895 - 1945. The principal objective of our current project will be to provide a comprehensive overview of documentary film production. The work will take the form of: intensive research in film archives and the close analysis of representative examples of documentary film, including its various subgenres. The central focus of our work will be documentaries produced for screening in the cinema, though we will also be considering films which belong to the peripheral documentary domain, such as educational films, industrial films and newsreels. In producing this history of German documentary film we will also take into account all the many changes that have taken place in communicative and socio-cultural practices with regard to the production, distribution and critical reception of documentary. In line with approaches adopted in New Film History we will be paying special attention to how technical, economic and institutional conditions have resulted in particular sets of thematic preoccupations in the documentary domain as well as in the development of specific modes of expression and aesthetic styles. Consideration will also be given to showing how documentary film production has been differentially shaped and influenced by the political systems that were in place in successive phases during the historical period under consideration. In the early 1960s and the 1990s there were also significant technological changes in the form of a) the introduction of the 16mm camera with sync sound (Direct Cinema) and b) the advent and widespread adoption of digital technology. All of this had a significant impact on documentary film production and the development of new styles and approaches. We have already completed the first phase of the research in the period 2012 - 2014. We produced a Filemaker data base which had been developed and programmed in the course of a pilot phase, but was now expanded to include extensive new information relating to film titles, film production companies, technical details and literature material. This data base contains detailed information on more than 9,000 film titles, is already proving to be a very useful source of information and a valuable tool for purposes of cross-referencing. The three research teams have not only discovered many relevant production details in different archives and in the trade press, but have also begun to view and analyze selected films. It is on the basis of this intense research that we have been able to come up with a detailed structure for each of the three volumes that we plan to publish in 2020.
DFG Programme
Research Grants
