Films
Films as sources
Identification, indexing and online-publication of filmmaking about agriculture
From the 1920s onwards film producers and agricultural institutions produced so called educational films for advisory purposes as well as propaganda films for agricultural products. Films were also an important media for the self-representation of farmers and their organisations. Therefore, it is not surprising, that in many of the archival funds the ARH have catalogued we find films and context information about rural films.
In order to preserve, systematise and publicise the information about the agricultural and rural films, the Archives of Rural History have, in collaboration with partners on the European level, created a database which contains information on the title as well as metadata on the so far identified rural films. So far the database of the ARH and the European Rural History Film Association contains information on ca. 4'000 films from Europe and North America. More than 1000 of these films are digitised and can be viewed online via the ARH-ERHFA-Online-Portal.
Supported by Memoriav, the maintainer of Memobase.
Video essays as a new form of communication of historical knowledge
Texts as a form of communication have been losing importance for years at the expense of (moving) images. When films become a dominant form of communication in people's everyday lives, historians can no longer ignore the medium when it comes to communicating their findings.
We are therefore producing the series Videoessays in Rural History together with the European Rural History Film Association (ERHFA). Video essays are an independent form of communicating historical knowledge. Video essays can add new dimensions to historical knowledge and advance theses or arguments by using the potential and possibilities of visual sources and moving images. Because the video essay format is not intended to replace written texts but to complement them, each video essay in this series is accompanied by an accompanying text containing the script, source references and references to further reading. The video essay and the accompanying texts will be published online simultaneously.
Proposals for the publication of a video essay in the series Videoessays in Rural History should be addressed to the Editorial Board. The guidelines provide information on the procedure for inclusion.
