cinema - Europe - Internet

A wealth of film antiques - online

Wednesday 08 October 2008

Europa Film Treasures, a website launched last summer, offers free access to a collection of rare flicks from various European film archives. It spans a diversity of genres, from French classics to original western movies.

1899. Crowds gather to admire the Gordon Highlanders, a prestigious Scottish battalion, as they march down the town. Next film, next century: no more flickering black-and-white pictures, but abstract, colourful shapes designed by contemporary artist Margaret Tait.

In a few clicks, you have just flicked through nearly a century of European film archives – a dream made possible by Europafilmtreasures.eu. The website, launched last summer, allows the public to watch a selection of rare films for free.

The starting collection features 50 full-length videos, all of which came from film archives scattered across Europe. Each film comes with specific information and historical background.

Switching between subtitles in five languages

The website uses the latest technology. It automatically detects each visitor's connection speed and plays the videos in the corresponding quality, up to full-screen size. A state-of-the art system allows users to switch between subtitles in five languages as the film plays.

French producer Serge Bromberg is the driving force behind this online European film museum. His company, Lobster Films, occupies a block of old shops linked by a mind-boggling maze of corridors in Paris.

Lobster hosts some 100,000 reels accumulated by Bromberg since his childhood. “It would be a pity to leave them inaccessible”, he says. A passionate restorer of film archives, he has spent the last 20 years trying to show them in public through live performances, festivals and television shows.

Pure vaudeville extract

True to its French origins, Europa Film Treasures features typical French classics, such as Les Surprises de l'amour by film pioneer Max Linder, a pure vaudeville extract from the early 20th century.

But concerted efforts by European film archives, as well as EU Commission subsidies, allow the site to reach across borders.

Although all the films shown here are conserved in Europe, some of them come from much further away. Bucking Broadway, for example, is one of John Ford's very first westerns. That ancient, yellowed reel focuses on the romantic duel between a poor cowboy and a rich merchant for the heart of a local girl rather than on gunfights.

Visitors, too, come from all over the world. According to Europa Film Treasures production manager Claire Gadéa, among the 5,000 individual users who visited the website every day shortly after its launch, the largest group were in… the United States.

The film Tulips Shall Grow is another classic reaching across the Atlantic. Its director, George Pal, was a Hungarian national who moved to Germany, before fleeing through the Netherlands in the wake of Nazi rule. He directed that superb animated movie in Hollywood in 1939 to give European morale a boost.

Europa Film Treasures spans a wide variety of genres, from sci-fi to animation, and even features erotic films.

Some hidden gems will thrill hardcore film buffs, such as a documentary made at the 1953 Swedish film awards party. While the industry celebrates itself, the guests and the director only think of Ingrid Bergman, who finally shows up in the middle of the night.

The website’s film collection is expected to grow. “We are going to add Croatian films by the end of the year”, says project coordinator Pascaline Peretti, among other plans.

Yet Europa Film Treasures is not intended to become a comprehensive film archive database. “The idea is to whet the appetite of people who don’t visit film archives”, says Bromberg.