En fælles filmkultur? Danmark og Tyskland i stumfilmperioden 1910–1930/A Shared Film Culture? Denmark and Germany in the Silent Period, 1910–1930 (Prof. Dr. Stephan Michael Schröder in Zusammenarbeit mit dänischen Kolleg:innen von der Universität Kopenhagen und dem Dänischen Filminstitut) Asta Nielsen is still remembered as the great Danish diva of the silent era. But it is often overlooked that only four of the more than 70 films she appeared in were produced in Denmark; the rest were produced in Germany. Along with more than 30 other leading Danish film people, including Carl Th. Dreyer, Benjamin Christensen, and Urban Gad, Nielsen played an important role in establishing and constructing film culture in Germany. There was traffic in the other direction as well: a number of German film people, particularly screenwriters, put their mark on the Danish cinema. But how can we account for the significance of the cultural exchange between two of the most important film-making nations in Europe during the 1910–1930 period? That is the main research question this project seeks to answer. The main working hypothesis we derive from it is that the flowering of Danish cinema in the 1910s and of German cinema in the 1920s is better explained through this cross-pollination than from a purely national perspective and that we can therefore speak of a common film culture. The project is financed by Danish foundations from 2019 until 2022. Homepage of the project: https://www.dfi.dk/node/47288
