A New Look at Europe’s Film Heritage: ArteKino Classics

Being young in today’s world means growing up with digital technology; in the past few years, the younger generation has also developed a renewed consciousness of socio-political issues. At the intersection of these two developments, digitally restored films on – and from – past societal transformations bear the potential to enrich cultural discourse. ArteKino Classics, a new pan-European streaming venture from ARTE, with a special focus on the modern film heritage of 1945–1995, seeks to realise this potential. Over a period of three months, ARTE is providing 20 national film classics from almost as many European countries with subtitles in six languages (French, English, German, Italian, Spanish and Polish). The 20 recently restored films were selected in close consultation with the Association des Cinémathèques Européennes. The programme invites a young European audience to (re)discover both popular classics and films that broke new ground in cinematography and social discourse.