The National Archives of Hungary (Budapest, 2006)
PRESS AND MEDIA ARCHIVES - Hungarian Film Archives by József Bana
BY JÓZSEF BANA HUNGARIAN FILM ARCHIVES F irst the Film Scientific Institution established by Theatre and Cinema College with the leadership of Béla Balázs in 1948 archived the documents in connection with the works of cinematic art. The death of the establisher stopped the work for a while that could go on within the frames of Theatre and Film Scientific Institution. The two artistic branches were separated in 1959 so the independent Hungarian Film Scientific Institution has worked since then. Its name has been Hungarian Film Institution since 1985. The status of the Hungarian Film Institution has been national public collection since 1991. It has had the name of Hungarian National Film Archives since 1 st June 2000. The whole film division (news, documentaries, short and feature film) nearly 26 000 items is preserved and restored here. Also the foreign films presented and archived in Hungary are kept here. These copies are usually borrowed for teaching film aesthetics and to film clubs. It has continuously restored, renewed the Hungarian feature films and short films for ten years by recording them on safety films partly from the earlier, wrecking, nitro material, partly restoring the fading colours into their original colours. In the library of the Hungarian National Film Archives, which is the only special film library in Hungary there are 20 000 books, 4000 volumes of periodicals, 3500 film scripts available for researchers and inquires. There are 53 000 posters in its poster collection and there are more than 200 000 photos in its photo collection. The Perpetuum Mobile Film Museum is a favourable place for exhibitions, meetings and debates and discussions besides the daily changing film programmes. The periodicals of the Archives are the following: Film Culture edited since 1960 nowadays on-line, Film Spiral, Muszter (Muster), and the English MovEst. THE COLLECTION OF THE HUNGARIAN NON-FEATURE FILMS From the beginning to 1945 The nearly 1200 titles of the Hungarian non feature films (fact filmsdocumentaries) left over from the first half of the twentieth century beside
