Film archives and digital humanities – an impossible match? New job descriptions and the challenges of the digital era

Abstract

Th is article seeks to prompt a re-evaluation of the film archive's role within the current digital humanities debate as a logical, yet underrated, partner. The article invokes Jeffrey Schnapp’s and Todd Presner's plea from 2009 for digital humanities to create as its core aim a more democratic view of knowledge-producing institutions by including non-university research institutions as well as archives and museums. Archives, on the other hand, currently face the crucial challenge of how to digitise and present their collections online while struggling with rising related costs and having to redefi ne their mission as heritage keepers for often unique analogue material. The potential options for future collaboration between film archives and digital humanists as well as film scholars will also be discussed in this paper through an examination of the current situation.