Useful cinema and the dynamic film history beyond the national archive: Locating municipally sponsored Swedish city films in local archives

Abstract

Abstract Based on a case study of municipally sponsored films about the Swedish city of Gothenburg from the decades after World War II, this article contributes to the emerging scholarly field of ‘useful cinema’. It is argued that local archival materials are essential for studying this kind of useful cinema with its multiple uses, textual variations, screening contexts and both domestic and international circulation. Local archival materials are further essential for studying not only the local institutional use of cinema, but also the relationship between theatrical and non-theatrical exhibition. Moreover, the international circulation of useful cinema highlighted in the article cannot be studied solely with material from national archives. The conclusion calls for new types of digital archival milieus that capture the dynamics of this part of film history.