Filmarkivet.se - a platform for cinema history

Research project The purpose of the project is to develop the site filmarkivet.se, a joint venture between the Swedish Film Institute and the National Library of Sweden.

Netbased access deepens the study of Swedish film history, but digital provision also places quite different demands on robust functionality, updated user interfaces, new film categories, contextual information, social commentary features and links to other (film)historical sources on the web. The project aims to create a web-application set as its goal to significantly transform, secure and upgrade the existing site into a cinematic platform that meets the requirement of new digital expectations from both specific researchers and more general users.

Head of project

Pelle Snickars Professor

Project overview

Project period:

2013-01-01 – 2016-12-31

Participating departments and units at Umeå University

Department of Culture and Media Studies

Research subject

Media and communications

Project description

The application aims to fund reseacrh and reserach infrastructure in regards to four parallell work packages – cataloguing, coding, contextualization and communication – in accordance with two major purposes. On the one hand the project proposes to add new cinematic categories to the site, especially commercials, and on the other implement new web-based functionalities with a distinct user perspective. Commercials to be included are uncatalogued, and the application thus includes the preparation of this material. Filmarkivet.se has since its launch in February 2011 been a major success. Netbased access deepens the study of Swedish film history, but digital provision also places quite different demands on robust functionality, updated user interfaces, new film categories, contextual information, social commentary features and links to other (film)historical sources on the web. The pilot project around filmarkivet.se has been conducted with scarce resources, and the following application set as its goal to significantly transform, secure and upgrade the existing site into a cinematic platform that meets the requirement of new digital expectations from both specific researchers and more general users. In short, the ambition of the application is to refashion a film project on the web, to a full-scale web project for Swedish film.