ABSTRACT
Research on film historiography usually focuses on academia and film cultural institutions. The contribution of public television to this field has largely been ignored. This chapter highlights TV as a multiplier and agent of film history, alongside cinematheques and film archives, university programmes, journals, festivals, and other practical and intellectual networks. It focuses on West Germany, and specifically the Filmredaktion (film unit) of Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR), based in Cologne. However, this case study also more generally indicates how, in the 1970s to the 1990s, the combination of public financing and state support, an educational mission, and a specific generation of cinephile auteurs and commissioning editors managed to turn European public television into an important site of film historiography.
