Cataloguing the amateur film collection “Niederösterreich privat”

The collection “Niederösterreich privat” is the result of a highly successful call for contributions of small-gauge films initiated by the province of Lower Austria together with the Filmarchiv Austria in 2013. A total of over 70,000 films from more than 2,700 contributors were archived and digitised.

The films in this collection bear witness to the extraordinary as well as everyday life and how it is perceived. The film documents provide insights into family gatherings, village life and regional worlds of experience and stimulate research questions about ecological, cultural, and social developments.

Building on a pilot project by “first” (Forschungsnetzwerk Interdisziplinäre Regionalstudien) 2018 and 2019, this project at the Institute of Rural History, St. Pölten, is dedicated to indexing the contents of the film material from the 1910s to the early 1990s. During this long period, filming as a documentary practice was able to establish itself first among privileged groups and later, after the “Super 8” format was introduced in 1965, among ever larger segments of the Austrian population.

The digital catalogue that is being created should make it possible to quickly obtain information about types of content within the extensive film collection and to be able to find targeted films on specific topics, places, and events. “Your films write history” was the motto of the call for contributions. This catalogue is intended to help bring this idea to life and form the basis for research activities and cultural projects on the motifs and modes of representation of such films. Another aim of the project is to deepen networking and exchange processes with national and international experts in the field of collecting and researching amateur films and home movies, among other activities by participating in the European Rural History Film Association.