Národní Filmový Archiv

The National Film Archive in Prague belongs to ten oldest film archives in the world. It was founded by the Czech-Moravian Film Centre in 1943 to protect film materials against war operations. Since 1946 is a member of International Federation of Film Archives FIAF (Fédération Internationale des Archives du Film) and in 1997 became a founder member of Asociation of European Cinematheques ACE (Association des Cinémathèques Européenes). (...) In 1992 the archive was transformed as a part of the Czechoslovak film institute by decision of Minister of culture of the Czech Republic into independent National film archive. Change was confirmed by law No. 273/1993 of Chamber of Deputies of ParliamentČR and presently is NFA one of the most important national cultural institutions in the Czech Republic. 

Negative and positive film materials of national production,i.e. feature and non-feature films (documentary, popular-scientific, scientific, reporting, animated and others) from the establishment of the Czech film (1898) until today are the basis of the National Film Archive collections The reporter’s film collection, documenting the life of the Czech nation, the establishment and development of Czechoslovakia in all its time periods and spheres until 1993, capturing significant representatives of Czechoslovak cultural life, is an extraordinary precious part of the collections. It is quite an exceptional fact worldwide that two thirds of silent feature films and all Czech feature films from the period 1930–1992 (except for ten films from the period 1930–1939) were managed to be preserved from the national production. The other part of the collections consists of foreign cinematographies collection presenting the plastic picture of the film art development. The collections of films shot before the World War I, the collection of slapstick comedies from the period 1912–1929 and the collection of reporter’s films documenting significant world events are of extraordinary value. Also audiovisual collection on non-film carriers has been built since the beginning of the nineties.NFA takes care currently of over 150 millions metres of the film materials: 30.000 copies of feature films38.000 copies of non-feature films 9.500 negatives of feature films18.500 negatives of non-feature films 750 amateur films9.000 video -materials NFA puts into its collections around 3,500 film materials per year, by which it is ranked among the three first archives in Europe.100 tonnes of archived films is on highly flammable base (nitrocellulose). The oral history collection consists of almost 3.000 sound records.The other collections contain 500.000 photographs40.000 film posters 134.000 promotional materials3.000 art proposals 25.000 dialogue listsAnd the library’s collections are containing 66.500 volumes of books and bond periodicals9.500 screenplays 12.000 separators905 microfilm coils 1.330 microfiches145 CD-ROM carriers 17.900 descriptions575 foreign cuttings 1.200 volumes of the foreign festivals collectionNFA takes care of about 750 m of written archival materials–personal funds, film companies’funds; including the Czech film Headquarters Archive (1945–1990).