Agricultural film production in 20th century Switzerland: Identification, indexing, preserving and digitizing.

The aim of the project is to identify, catalogue, preserve, digitise and publish the so called “agricultural films”. Agricultural films were produced by agricultural organisations, state agencies, educational institutions, cooperatives, manufacturers, film productions companies or individual filmmakers. Most of these films have survived as part of the archival materials of the institutions who either commissioned or produced them.

The identified films (so far circa 1700) are catalogued in the European Rural History Film Database (ERHFDB); the films themselves are preserved by specialised film archives (Kinemathek Lichtspiel Bern; Cinémathèque Suisse in Lausanne). We assemble information on the produced films as well as on films which were planned, but never realised. This information can be consulted in the Archives of Rural History.

A selection of the films (so far circa 150) has been digitised and can be consulted via the ERHF Online Portal.