Virtual Filmstrip Museum (since 2006)

The Archivum actively collects digitized educational and propaganda filmstrips from the Cold War period. In Hungary and other Soviet Bloc countries filmstrips were a strictly controlled form of mass media which came to serve both educational and entertainment purposes, paralleling the rise of television in the West. Mass production started in the 1950s when the format was used primarily as a tool for propaganda to be shown at schools, universities, and workplaces. By the 1970s, the form had largely lost its political edge, devolving into “home movie”-style entertainment for children and family projection.

In 1998, the Archivum brought the culture of filmstrips to the attention of the wider public with an exhibition titled Freeze Frames of Communism, which explored the social, political, and technological circumstances behind the phenomenon. In recent years, the Archivum has forged ties with local collectors and in 2006 agreed with the Neumann Digital Library to take over the hosting of the Virtual Filmstrip Museum (Virtuális Diafilmmúzeum) online catalogue and digital repository and to ensure long-term access to digitized filmstrip collections. We have recently reintroduced the site with an updated user interface and online cataloguing module and continue to showcase the material through periodic public screenings.