Borna Film Promenade 2021/2022
We uncover treasures – and show them to you! In collaboration with the Borna Museum and the Borna Trade Association, film clips from Borna sources, which were digitised as part of the SAVE programme, were shown at a dozen locations in the city centre.
As part of the SAVE programme funded by the Free State of Saxony, some of the analogue media have been extensively restored and digitized in recent years and are now publicly accessible via the SLUB Dresden media library.
But we also wanted to show the films at the "scene of the action", in Borna itself. In bookshops, perfumeries, gift shops and master electricians, there were screens in the shop windows showing old film treasures: from the parade to mark the town's 800th anniversary, but also small films "from the attic". The films reflected Borna life in their time and are part of the cultural memory of the Free State of Saxony. We would like to encourage you to donate your private film treasures to us! You can read more about the SAVE project here. And you can find more information about the individual film clips from the project below.
| "800 years of Borna" | This film was produced in 1938 by the Film-Fabrik Helmut Krötel (Leipzig) on behalf of the town of Borna. Without any reference to the history of the town, an 800th anniversary celebration was planned for 1938. Shortly before the celebrations, it was simply called "Heimatfest". The first thing to be seen is the preparatory work for the festival, which was held from June 18 to 23, 1938. This includes shots of the arrival of guests at the train station, their escort through the town and the welcome at the market. This is followed by events on individual theme days of the Heimatfest, e.g. Children's Day, Craft Day, Sports Day and Armed Forces Day. A large part of the film is taken up by the parade, when individual pictures from the town's history are presented. This parade was the highlight of the Heimatfest with almost 3000 participants. The finale was the fireworks display at the Breite Teich. The film shows valuable views of the town and its population, but from a clearly propagandistic perspective. In addition to the predominant Nazi symbolism, war ideology and the militarization of society play a central role. On the eve of the Second World War, the portrait links the tradition of the garrison town with Borna's current importance as the base of a Wehrmacht anti-tank division. Military and paramilitary marches and events organized by Nazi organizations form a central focus of the film. |
| "The creating Borna" | This film was produced in 1938 by the Film-Fabrik Helmut Krötel (Leipzig) on behalf of the town of Borna. It was presumably intended to be shown together with the film "800 Years of Borna". It presents all the well-known companies and traders in the town of Borna at the time, including the Rinck steam sawmill, the Reiche printing works (Bornaer Tageblatt) and the Rother brewery in the old town of Borna. The film is a very valuable documentary testimony due to its density of insights into economic and commercial life, including the food retail trade in a medium-sized town. However, behind the brief highlights there are also untold stories - for example, the film stages a joyful procession of the administrative staff of the Borna branch of Deutsche Erdöl AG, which as a company had excluded Jewish members from its board of directors and supervisory board in 1937/1938 for anti-Semitic reasons. The source material for the digitization of the film was a silent, black-and-white 35mm nitrate positive print from the collection of the Borna City Museum. The two rolls of film exhibited severe decomposition damage, so that sections of the film material that had not yet been "caked" had to be separated manually and later digitally retouched in some cases. The original length of the film could not be verified. Compared to a surviving video scan made of the undamaged film in 1995, 177 meters of film are presumably missing (6:27 min). |
| Robert Haussmann pastry shop and concert coffee house | This viragized film was produced in 1926 as an advertisement for the Haussmann café and pastry shop in Bahnhofstraße Borna. The daughter, Käte Brand, of the last owner (Erich Haussmann) wrote in a letter in 1998: "The "voluminous" 35mm film reel enclosed with this letter was used for cinema advertising. I assume that the film dates from the early thirties. The ice cream vans of the time drive out of our gate entrance, you can see shop window decorations, concert garden life (with the trio Bummer, Peterlein, Steinbach, later Fanny Müller-Schmidt sang and made music there), our special "products" (the "onion" had an almost lifelike colored skin, in the film it "comes out" dark in my opinion).My grandfather Robert Haußmann opened and ran a "confectionery, café and restaurant" in the building "Zum Schweizerhaus" (today: Volkshaus) on October 5, 1891. His father Johann Gottlob Haußmann then bought the property at Lobstädter Strasse 105 (now Bahnhofstrasse 33). In May 1894, construction work began on the property. The building was completed in October 1894. The site manager was architect Rust from Leipzig, and the construction work was carried out by Wangemann and master carpenter Eichler, both from Borna. On the first floor of this residential and commercial building, the "confectionery and coffee house business and the serving of Bavarian beer were operated". Over the course of time, the company name changed, mainly in connection with conversions, renovations and new buildings: 1901 Conditorei und Wiener Café, 1904 Wiener Café, 1913 Conditorei und Café R. Haußmann, 12/13 June 1924 First Borna concert café, 1928 after installation of the glass dance floors with 4-colour lighting, 1930 the same glass dance floor was installed in the concert garden. There were concerts on Thursdays and Sundays. The concerts and dances were always well attended. In February 1936, my father Erich Haußmann took over the business. The "Bornaer Zwiebel" (Borna onion), which had been produced since 1906, and the "Bornaer Salonbrikett" (Borna salon briquette), which was still well-known at the time, were sent abroad in "original boxes" from 1912/13 onwards, the onion also accompanied by a picture postcard of Borna." |
| "Albert" (Albert in the car, at Christmas, sledging) | These films were made in 1955 by Borna's local hero and world champion in peaceful fishing, Helmut Schmidt. They were made available to us by the Borna Museum. |
| "My film diary 1935" | This film diary of the Dresden ENT doctor Gerhard Schneider was made available to the library by the Dresden cameraman and film collector Ernst Hirsch. It covers the period from the beginning to Christmas 1935, in which the amateur filmmaker documents events from his private life. These include excursions with family and friends in the immediate vicinity of Dresden, a trip to Lugano and footage of everyday life. In Borna, we naturally show the contemplative clips "under the Christmas tree" at Christmas time. |
You can admire our film treasures at the following locations (here is an overview map from Google Maps):
Goedels Erbgemeinschaft | Reichsstr. 22 |
The insurance company | Roßmarktsche Str. 15 |
Concordia Insurance | An der Mauer 7-9 |
Otto Leather Goods | Bahnhofstr. 12 |
Perfumery Funcke | Bahnhofstr. 7 |
Moments of happiness | Bahnhofstr. 5 |
Bookstore | Mühlgasse 5 |
Modeexpress No. 1 | Wassergasse 6 |
Market 15 | Market 15 |
Elektro Schreiter | Bahnhofstr. 32 |
LVZ | Brauhausstr. 3 |
Elektro Teichmann | Kantstr. 2 |