Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung (Wiesbaden)

  >> View the Murnau Stiftung collection on EFG Within the media industry, the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Foundation is a central institution for the preservation of the cultural heritage of film. Since its establishment in 1966, this internationally renowned foundation has been committed to the preservation, care and accessibility of a significant part of the German film heritage of outstanding cultural and film historical significance.

Its unique film collection includes prints and materials, as well as the corresponding rights, from the beginnings of motion pictures up to the early 1960s, comprising approximately 2,000 silent films, 1,000 sound films and 3,000 short films (commercials, cultural films, documentaries). Among them are films by world-famous directors such as Fritz Lang, Ernst Lubitsch, Detlef Sierck, Helmut Käutner, Wolfgang Staudte and Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, the foundation's namesake, whose masterpieces are still relevant today. Among them are the great classics of German cinema such as METROPOLIS, THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI, THE NIBELUNGEN, THE BLUE ANGEL, THE THREE OF THE GAS STATION and THE BLACK SHEEP. The Foundation's mission is to preserve these films and make them available to the public. This includes the ongoing digitization and restoration of the Foundation's film holdings. Since 2010, approximately 200 titles have been made available digitally.

Since 2009, the Foundation has also been operating its own cinema. The Murnau Filmtheater enriches the cultural life of Wiesbaden with a high-quality, historically significant and diverse film program. The modern and comfortable cinema (100 seats) as the heart of the film house allows the foundation, in addition to its work in film archiving and restoration, to make parts of the unique film stock from more than six decades of German film production available to the public in the place they were intended: on the cinema screen.