CINEMATEK has been collecting film-related documents since 1938:
69.000
Books
9.100
Periodical publications
including film magazines (3,800 titles), yearbooks (820 titles) and film festival publications (1,350 titles)
45.000
Posters
850.000
photographs
1,450.000
press documents
6.000
Original Film Screenplays
These different types of collections belonging to the film-related collection will be clarified below. Books and magazines can be requested in the library via the online catalogue. The catalogue is only available in French or Dutch.
Books
The 66,000 titles of our library form a unique collection of information about both Belgian and world cinema. Our first works date back to before 1900, the pre-cinema period. Furthermore, we continuously keep on expanding our collection by acquiring more than 600 titles on a yearly basis. Aside from precious and rare works, we also offer more recent paperbacks. These books are intended for both the general and the specialised public.
Our book collection consists of:
biographies and memoirs of actors and directors
reviews and movie interpretations
books about film theories
research per movie genre (drama, science fiction, thriller, documentary, ...)
research per geographical region (by country, by continent, by region)
works about the history of film and pre-cinema
research about movie esthetics
published scripts
...
The topics covered are very diverse and highly relevant (film aesthetics, video on demand, ...)
Periodical publications
Our periodical publications are divided into three subcategories: magazines, annuals and festival catalogues.
The magazine collection has over 3,800 titles. The oldest magazines of this collection stem from the 20th century, such as Pathé programme or The Edison Kinetogram.
This collection highlights Belgian magazines with rare titles like Weekblad Cinema or Revue du cinéma belge, but more recent series such as Andere Sinema, Soundtrack, Le Moniteur du film en Belgique or Filmmagie cannot be overlooked either.
Great attention is also paid to the conservation and acquirement of foreign magazines in different languages. Our magazine collection considers academic, thematic and popular titles:
Screen International
Le Film français
Théorème
Framework
Spectator
Blink Blank
La septième obsession
So Film, Filmcritica
Kino Ikon
Science Fiction Film and Television
Projections - The Journal for Movies and Mind
L’Avant-scène Cinéma
...
Our annuals are composed of over 800 titles. We distinguish two kinds:
publications that give an overview about the last cinema year with a description of all films released, analyses and statistics such as Annuel du cinéma, Filmjaarboek, …
Guides with contact information of people and companies who are active in the film industry, for example the Annuaire Bellefaye.
Finally, we have the festival catalogues with over 1,400 titles.
For many years, we have followed the major national and international film festivals and indexed the catalogues they publish each year. This rich historical collection includes publications from the early years of festivals such as Cannes, Venice and Locarno as well as the most recent catalogues from festivals such as:
Filmfest Gent
Viennale
Annecy Festival International d’Animation
Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival
Bologna Cinema Ritrovato
Paris Cinéma du réel
...
Paper and Digitized Posters
This collection of 30,000 posters, on paper or in digital format, contains almost exclusively posters of films that were screened in Belgium. Most of the Belgian posters were created by Belgian poster designers.
Among others, we have a collection of 102 posters by poster artist Jos De Cock, who designed around 400 film posters between 1947 and 1957.
Beside Belgium, other countries are also represented in our poster collection (France, United States, ...)
Our library displays posters of different formats:
French posters (120x160cm)
Anglo-Saxon one-sheets (70x100cm)
Belgian posters (40x60 and 60x800cm)
We are currently further inventorying and digitizing our poster collection.
Paper and Digital Photographs
The photo library has more than 816,000 photos for 54.650 movie titles, of which 630,000 are on paper, mainly from:
- Belgian and international movies
publicity and promotional photos
Set and on location stills
portraits of actors and directors
- themed photos
cinemas
cameras
movie libraries
studios
...
photos taken at filmfestivals
Thanks to the publicity photos of the movies, largely deposited by Belgian distributors, the whole history of Belgian movie exploitation can be found in this collection.
It consists of photos of famous set photographers, both international and Belgian:
Marie-Françoise Plissart
Kris Dewitte
Jean-Michel Vlaeminckx
...
This paper photo collection has fully been digitized and is complementary to the originally digital photos that had been collected throughout the past ten years.
Digital Press Files
These files are mainly composed of press clippings from popular newspapers and magazines, both published in Belgium and abroad.
This multilingual collection, that dates from the beginning of the 20th century, consists of:
movie reviews
interviews
bio-filmographies
articles about film festivals
lists of award-winners and prizes
articles about all audiovisual themes
...
The collection also contains the official ‘press files’ that were edited by distributors and producers at the occasion of a movie launch, both for Belgian and international movies, including the additional promotion materials.
These last few years, the collection has also been expanded with other digital or digitized sources, originally from the start of the 20th century:
old movie programmes
correspondence
newsletter articles
digitalized Belgian movie magazines
...
The digital database with more than 1,380,000 indexed documents, supplemented with metadata, can be searched in full text. This multilingual collection is the perfect tool to study, among others, the reception of films by film critics and the general public.
Screenplays
Archive Holdings
Both individuals as well as corporations or organisations can deposit their archive holdings with us.
These holdings are particularly interesting for researchers to study the activities of directors and the Belgian movie industry.
We conserve archive holdings from:
festivals such as Film Fest Gent, EXPRMNTL, Écran du Séminaire des Arts
movie clubs like the Zottegem movie club
production houses
distribution companies
...
(We are very proud to conserve holdings of: )
Chantal Akerman/Paradise Films
Thierry Zéno
Marion Hänsel
Benoît Lamy
Rik Kuypers
Emile Degelin
Georges De Meyst
Charles Dekeukeleire
Frans Buyens
Lydia Chagoll
Jean-Marie Buchet
...
Holdings from individuals can contain artistic and formal documents related to both finished or non-finished movie projects:
scripts
Pre-productions
production contracts
distribution and sales movies
administrative documents and accounting
correspondence and notes
pictures and posters
press cuttings
press files
...
In cooperation with the Chantal Akerman Foundation, the archives of Chantal Akerman and Paradise Films are currently being catalogued, inventoried and digitized. A thorough scientific knowledge of her work makes it possible to offer answers to the questions of researchers, of programme makers who want to show her work or of artists and filmmakers who draw inspiration from it.
Access to our FILM RELATED
Are you looking for photographs, posters, books or documents for your research project, start here.
Access to our FILM RELATED
Looking for photos, posters or documents for your exhibition or museum, start here.
Access to our FILM RELATED
If you are looking for an image for your book, production or documentary, please start here.
