Swiss Film Archive Cinémathèque suisse

Overview

The Cinémathèque suisse (Swiss Film Archive) is Switzerland's national film archive and one of the ten most prominent film archives in the world, as recognised by the International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF). It is a private foundation supported primarily by the Swiss Federal Office of Culture, the City of Lausanne, and the Canton of Vaud. The institution is headquartered at the Casino de Montbenon in Lausanne, with research and archiving centres in Penthaz and Zurich.

History and Founding

The idea for a Swiss film archive originated in 1943, when a group of enthusiasts founded the Swiss Cinematographic Archives under the auspices of the Basel Fine Arts Museum (Kunstmuseum Basel). After Basel withdrew funding, the archives were transferred to Lausanne and the Cinémathèque suisse was co-founded by Freddy Buache in 1948, formally inaugurated in 1950 by Erich von Stroheim. The institution became a private foundation in 1981, and that year acquired the Casino de Montbenon in Lausanne as its main premises. In 1988, a disused bookbinding workshop in Penthaz was acquired for storage. The new Research and Archiving Centre in Penthaz was inaugurated on 6 September 2019 at a cost of 50.6 million Swiss francs, centralising the collection under optimal preservation conditions for the first time.

Collections and Holdings

The Cinémathèque suisse holds over 85,000 film titles (including 100,000 fiction and documentary films), 700,000 reels, 2.5 million photographs, 500,000 posters, 26,000 books, thousands of scripts and documentary files, 2,000 rare film cameras, and other film-related objects. The collections include the complete Swiss Ciné-Journal (national newsreel), deposited by the Confederation in 1975, as well as private archives of Swiss and international film personalities, expedition films, advertising films, and amateur films. On average, 400 films are donated annually and 15–20 feature films are restored each year.

Media and Journalism Holdings

The Swiss Ciné-Journal archive is a primary source for the audiovisual history of Switzerland's public life and media. The non-film department holds institutional archives, periodicals, and press materials that document the history of cinema journalism and film criticism in Switzerland.

Access

The Cinémathèque offers over 1,000 public screenings annually at the Cinéma Capitole in Lausanne (731 seats in the historic auditorium). Research access to archival materials is available by appointment at the Penthaz centre. The institution maintains close research ties with the University of Lausanne's department of Film History and Aesthetics.