ABSTRACT
Combining the perspectives of amateur film research and useful cinema research, the chapter is a case study on film footage that was shot in the West German city of Dortmund in the immediate postwar period. The material stems from Dortmund resident Elisabeth Wilms, who at that time was an enthusiastic film hobbyist and was later able to turn that hobby into a profession. Her shots of the devastated city center of Dortmund can be regarded as the foundation of the filmmaker’s decades-long career in utility film production, as her footage was used repeatedly in various contexts, from fundraising films, municipal promotional films, educational films, and remembrance films to TV documentaries—in most cases to evoke a sense of community.
