Austrian Film Museum – Visual History of the Holocaust

The Austrian Film Museum (OFM) collects, preserves, and presents films. Founded in 1964 as a not-for-profit association it operates a world-renowned cinematheque and a reference library in Vienna. It actively curates and preserves a museum collection of motion picture film, still images and associated documentation. The Film Museum runs research, education and outreach programs to interpret its collections and to engage researchers, artists, students and the general public in the appreciation and discovery of film as an art form and as a historical record.
As a research institute, the Film Museum develops and supports research projects in academic and non-academic contexts worldwide. The focus hereby lies in the artistic and scholarly research on the film medium in its manifold dimensions, be it historical, contemporary, or in terms of its continuation in other media. The Film Museum therefore actively pursues a dynamic exchange with other fields of art, research and scholarship and positions itself as a place of knowledge and creative production.
Ephemeral films have played a key role in a number of joint projects with different partners, including the Department of Theatre, Film, and Media Studies at the University of Vienna as well as the TU Wien (VHH Consortium member TUW); and in particular in the long-standing collaboration with VHH coordinator LBI. Some of these projects involved the application of concepts of Digital Humanities to create innovative forms of access. Examples include the online platforms “Film. Stadt. Wien” (2009–2011), “Ephemeral Films: National Socialism in Austria” (2011–2016), “I- Media-Cities” (2016–2019).
The Austrian Film Museum is financially supported by the Austrian Federal government and the City of Vienna as well as through contribution by its members and supporters, project grants as well as through revenue generated through its events and programs. The Film Museum is a member of the International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF), the Association of European Cinémathèques (ACE) and the Association of Austrian Media Archives (maa).

Role in the Project

The Film Museum serves as the co-coordinating institution and is leader of the work package dealing with Advanced Digitization and the task of developing a metadata model. The Film Museum is also responsible for the tasks of data management and IPR management. It contributes its expertise in film preservation, film-historical research, cataloging, digitization and metadata handling, technology-enhanced contextualization and curation. With its expertise in the handling of analog film material and in digitization, OFM leads the development of advanced digitization standards and contributes to the development of a sustainable and interoperable metadata model for filmic heritage materials. These technical tasks are embedded in the Film Museum’s work as a co-developer of policies and best practice models for the ethical and sustainable digital curation of filmic heritage materials. The Film Museum furthermore supports the dissemination in relevant professional communities on an international level.

Team Members

Camille Blot-Wellens

Ethics advisor

Austrian Film Museum

Peter Bubestinger-Steindl

Metadata Manager, researcher and developer (development and implementation of the VHH-EFG Metadata Schema)

Austrian Film Museum

Anna Högner

Researcher and curator; expert for GLAM sector needs and results

Austrian Film Museum

Stefan Huber

Film educator

Austrian Film Museum

Michael Loebenstein

Deputy Coordinator, Work Package Leader, member of the Management Board, OFM team leader

Austrian Film Museum

Kevin Lutz

Development and supervision of digitization and preservation workflows

Austrian Film Museum

Michael Paul

Identifying and managing stakeholders; exploitation and business strategy & planning

Austrian Film Museum

Claudio Santancini

Film digitization expert (digital film processing, Master Film Repository)

Austrian Film Museum

Alessandra Thiele

Project Management

Austrian Film Museum

Marcus Weber-Eberhardt

Administrative support

Austrian Film Museum

Nadja Šičarov

Quality check assistance

Austrian Film Museum

Article Author

Filmgeschichte als Visual History: Digitale Zugänge zu Europas Dunklem Erbe

Anna Högner, Filmgeschichte als Visual History: Digitale Zugänge zu Europas Dunklem Erbe, in: Katharina Günther, Stefan Alschner (Hg.), Sammlungsforschung im digitalen Zeitalter: Chancen, Herausforderungen und Grenzen, Göttingen 2024, 209–218.