A book of records!

After years of research in libraries and archives, careful checking of about 50 daily newspapers, 15 film reviews and cultural journals, compiling data on production, cast and the reception of films, Gero Gandert published the first volume - on 1929 - of a series of 15 volumes on cinema in Germany between 1919 and 1932.

The book is unique in its completeness and accurateness. It is a new model for editing data on film history. Whoever intends to study - or program - German cinema from the Weimar Republic holds in hand with this book the most reliable source of information. The publication contains for all feature length films, produced in 1929 in Germany, complete credits, dates and location of shooting, censorship decisions, description of content, reprints of the most important critics of the time, quotations from articles about production, filmmakers etc. and a bibliography of further publications on each film in daily newspapers and reviews. In addition the volume contains a list of all foreign films shown in Germany and a chronology of events in cinematography in 1929.

The book has its price, 470 DM. The most expensive film book published in Germany ever.

But Gero Gandert leaves also space for research and new discoveries on cinema in the Weimar Republic. The book gives no information on the existence of prints in archives and on collections of related materials, production and government files. The integration of these changing datas was not the concept of Gandert's book.

Cinema in the Weimar Republic, vol. 1929, and the following volumes should have its place in each film library. FIAF affiliates interested in obtaining this publication should contact the Stiftung Deutsche Kinemathek which offers special sales conditions.

Wolfgang Klaue