The Bundesarchiv's motion picture department ("Filmarchiv")is staffed by about 100 people. It is associated with other German film archives and film institutions and was assigned to be the central German film archive responsible for collecting, cataloguing, preserving and giving access to the whole range of German or German co-produced films (except TV productions).

Its holdings comprise roughly 120.000 works on more than one million carriers, thus not only being the biggest German film archives, but one of the global players. The time span of the motion picture collection ranges from 1895 until today covering feature and non-feature films, cinematographic works and cartoons as well as moving-image material made for educational, amateur, industry or advertisement purposes. Every period and each genre is represented, with a focus yet on newsreels from 1914 to 1978, on films dating from 1930-1945, on films originating from the German Democratic Republic, on films produced by government agencies as well as legal deposit films having received public funding.

The film archives also disposes of a remarkable collection of ancillary and publicity material such as posters, stills, scenarios, film programmes and runs a small library specialised on film literature.

Bundesarchiv / Filmarchiv