The German Early Cinema Database

The Documents Collection

About the database

This collection contains over 5,000 German texts related to early cinema, published mainly between 1895 and 1914, culled from publications that did not primarily deal with film, such as general newspapers and magazines as well as specialist journals (legal, pedagogical, literary etc.).

The texts were compiled and digitalized by Herbert Birett. This collection was acquired by the research project "Visuelle Gemeinschaften" (“Visual Communities”) with funds from the DFG (German Research Foundation) and the texts were transformed into the current database format with search and filter options.

Texts in Fraktur (German gothic type) were converted to Latin type. Alternate spellings or errors were not corrected; instead, the usual or correct spellings were added in parentheses. Hence, the documents are fully searchable. In addition, a selection of texts can be exported for offline use.

Searching and filtering

In order to search within the documents, click on the link at the top left "Show search and filter options".

You can search for search terms either in the full text or in parts of it, depending on the choice you make by checking or unchecking the appropriate boxes.

To filter documents by their source, first check the box "Filter by Source" and then check or uncheck the appropriate boxes below. If the current selection is from more than five sources, only the first five are shown at first. Click on the link below these to get the full list of all sources for the current selection.

To filter documents by their publication date, simply check the appropriate box and set the time frame according to your wishes. If a document's source does not state a day of publication, the first of the month is used; if it does not state a month either, the 1st of January is used for ordering purposes.