Thanks to a generous donation by cinephile, film critic, actor and director Heimo Bachstein (1937–2011) film researchers in Weimar can draw from 1,000 books and 3,500 individual issues of 150 different periodicals. We were able to, for example, complete our collection of the French film journal »Cahiers du Cinéma«. A large gap in the university library's film literature collection is further closed by rare film books by Sergej Eisenstein and Federico Fellini, as well as correspondence, original photographs, film posters and painstakingly assembles themed collections ranging from experimental film to Andy Warhol. The film enthusiast intended to cohesively preserve this collection, liaised by senior fellow of the Internationales Kolleg für Kulturtechnikforschung und Medienphilosophie (IKKM) Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Beilenhoff (1943–2021), and make it available to film researchers in Weimar.
During the summer semester 2015 Prof. Volker Pantenburg held a seminar titled »Archiv und Cinephilie. Eine Recherche im Nachlass Heimo Bachsteins« that had students select from, contextualize and in an archival context comment on a range of documents, films and artifacts from the Heimo Bachstein donation. During the summaery 2015 the results were shown as a curated exhibition in the university library and documented in a weblog.
In the winter semester 2015/16 the research collection was further explored in the project module »Archiv und Sammlung«, which consisted of the seminars »Bachsteins Kino«, »Vom Filmclub zur Coop: Infrastrukturen und Distributionsmodelle des unabhängigen Kinos« as well as the plenum »Geschichte und Praxis der Cinephilie«. Since then, students of media culture have had opportunities to view the collection and explore individual objects in different seminars.
The results were collected in a book in 2016: »Kinoenthusiasmus. Die Schenkung Heimo Bachstein« by Prof. Dr. Volker Pantenburg and Dr. Katrin Richter, assisted by Paulina Kutschka, Franziska Schade and Sophie Spallinger and designed by Ricarda Löser, published by LUCIA Verlag Weimar. The book was funded by the Kreativfonds, the Women's Promotion Fund, the media faculty, the Internationales Kolleg für Kulturtechnikforschung und Medienphilosophie (IKKM), the Freundeskreis der Bauhaus-Universität Weimar e.V., die Weiterbildungsakademie e.V. (WBA), the university library and private donations. Proceeds from the book's sales were used to support new student publication projects in LUCIA Verlag Weimar. The book is also available in Open Access: https://doi.org/10.25643/bauhaus-universitaet.3220.
The book was presented on the IKKM lounge on January 11th 2017. With music by the duo »Bosque Magico«, over 70 guests followed the invitation. After Katrin Richter (university library) introduced the enterprise, Prof. Dr. Volker Pantenburg (FU Berlin) reported on investigating the collection, Ricarda Löser (art and design faculty) on the book design, and Carolin Klemm (LUCIA-Verlag) on the student nonprofit publisher's activities.
