Germany promotes digitisation of national film heritage

The German cultural ministry has allocated 1 million euros ($1.34 million) for digitising the country's film heritage.

The money will be provided to four facilities of the German Cinematheque Association, an association of film museums and archives, Xinhua reported.

Calling films from the past an "insightful" record of culture, German Minister of State for Culture Monika Gruetters said it is a priority to keep the film heritage alive and continue to make it available to the public and preserved for future generations.

Gruetters said that the films, which exist currently only in analog mode, are gradually disappearing from public view and therefore need to be digitised.

German Cinematheque Association is a part of Association of European Film Archives and Cinematheques which is an affiliation of 44 European national and regional film archives founded in 1991.

Its role is to safeguard the European film heritage and make this rich audiovisual records collected and preserved by the various film archives accessible to the public.