Exhibiting Films and Respect: a Few Notes on Film Exhibition from the Perspective of a Film Museum

The article questions the role and the function of film museums, archives, and cinémathèques as the responsibilities of film curators and film programmers, who (should) do their work with the awareness that their mission extends beyond the mere safeguarding film history, for the necessary selection process behind preservation, restoration, and (perhaps above all) exhibition, implies writing film history. This logic is best summarized by the tagline that famously decorates the entrance to the Österreichisches Filmmuseum (Austrian Film Museum) in Vienna: “Filmmuseum is a cinematheque, our exhibitions take place on a
screen.” In regard of the current financial situation, the technological changes as the perspective of “people” (audience), the dilemma of a film curator is how and what should she or he exhibit in a film museum as the function of a film museum is not merely to serve a preexisting audience, but also to educate and shape the taste of its public.

The integral version of this article can be found in the printed KINO!