The advertising-film producer Julius Pinschewer commissioned pioneering cameraman and film historian Guido Seeber to produce this short film to pro­mote the Kino- und Photoausstellung (or “Kipho” for short), a trade show for film and photography that took place in Berlin from 25 September to 4 October 1925. Seeber fashioned a frenzied mon­tage, combining staged behind-the-scenes shots of studio filming and post-produc­tion with excerpts from his collection of historical film equipment and docu­ments. Seeber also incorporated footage from then-recent films made by Ufa – Germany’s leading production company – including Fritz Lang’s Die Nibelun­gen (1924). (The impressive human-op­erated life-size model dragon created for Lang’s film was featured as an exhibit at Kipho.) F.W. Murnau’s The Last Laugh (1924) and, most prominently, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) also echo through Seeber’s promotional film. Above all, however, it is its whirlwind of multiple exposures and special effects that make the film, simply titled Film, a mas­terpiece of cinéma pur.

Martin Koerber