DFG-Project “Jewish Film Heritage”

Culture and Language, European-Jewish History

Project leaders: PD Dr. Anna-Dorothea Ludewig (MMZ), Dr. Lea Wohl von Haselberg (Filmuniversität Babelsberg Konrad Wolf) and Dr. Ulrike Schneider (Universität Potsdam).
The project is part of the DFG Priority Program 2357: Jewish Cultural Heritage.

Jewish film history is still a young but dynamic field of research — “Jewish film heritage” on the other hand, has so far been a desideratum. It can be conceptualized following the notion of film heritage discussed in recent years, which understands films “not as interpretable texts or results of a specific production process, but as a network of relationships consisting of their material condition, their legal possession and their (ideal) appropriation, or of various actors such as film archives, rights holders and the interested public” (Chris Wahl). The term film heritage thus goes beyond film history, as it makes visible the conditions under which film history is written. This understanding of film heritage widens the perspective to include audiovisual material widely neglected by film historiography (such as amateur, industry, educational or advertising films), parafilmic and film accompanying materials as well as cinemas and other film screening venues (from DP camps to film events in communities to Jewish film festivals) or biographies of Jewish filmmakers.

The goal of the project is to develop a scientifically based working definition of the term that connects to literary studies research on the understanding of “Jewish literatures” as well as to film studies approaches to dealing with audiovisual heritage and considerations of critical heritage studies.

https://juedischefilmgeschichte.de/en/