Photo Archive

The Photo Archive of the Deutsche Kinemathek contains over one million analog photos, slides, negatives, placards and digital images that collectively illustrate Germany's film and television culture, from its first feature films to the present. Our collection is especially strong in still photography capturing the content and aesthetic of film scenes, usually taken for PR and marketing purposes. Our holdings are supplemented with photos of movie theaters, festivals and portraits of filmmakers, including numerous celebrity postcards.

We also house archives from important photographers such as Horst von Harbou, Heinz Köster and Erika Rabau. Furthermore, we maintain a constantly growing collection of roughly 45,000 film titles and 15,000 persons. Among the roughly 500,000 still and production photos, 100,000 personal photos and 50,000 photos relevant to cinematic and festival history, there are also valuable original prints from stylistically groundbreaking works of film history as well as image stock from current film and television productions. Our photos are a valuable source for research – both into early and lost films as well as for filling in gaps in the history of set photography.