Amateur Film Collection

The Austrian Film Museum houses an extensive collection of amateur films made in the small-gauge formats 8mm, Super 8, 9.5mm, 16mm and 17.5mm.

The Film Museum considers the work of amateur filmmakers an original form of artistic expression and an important source for writing history. The holdings conserved at the Film Museum provide artists and scholars from a wide range of disciplines access to unique materials of contemporary history and the culture of daily life, which can be used for research, teaching and artistic practices.

Private footage is generally one-of-a-kind, without a negative or safety copy. To ensure its long-term preservation, it is essential to safeguard the original. Long-term conservation of amateur films in their original, analog form is one of the Austrian Film Museum's core objectives.

In various research projects and educational formats, the Film Museum focuses on private historical documents and makes them accessible to an interested public – most recently in the research project reeladventures.