EFG1914

EFG1914 was the follow-up project of EFG – The European Film Gateway (2008-2011). The main outcome of the EFG project was the online portal The European Film Gateway, which gives access to several hundreds of thousands photos, films, texts and other material preserved in European film archives.

25 partners, among them 20 European film archives, worked towards the following main goals:

• digitise 647 hours of film and ca. 5.600 film-related documents on the theme of the First World War
• give access to the material through the European Film Gateway and Europeana
• build a virtual exhibition using selected objects digitised in EFG1914

EFG1914 covered all the different genres and sub-genres relevant in that time: newsreels, documentaries, fiction films, propaganda films. Moreover, EFG1914 also gave access to anti-war films that were mainly produced after 1918 and which reflect the tragedies of the 1910s. This material is of special importance since only around 20% of the complete silent film production survived in the film heritage institutions. Therefore, EFG1914 set out to digitize a crucial part and a critical mass of these remaining moving image records, mostly undiscovered by the public.