Der Filmberater (1941-1972)

Der Filmberater

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Published under various titles from 1941 to 1999, the clerical film and media periodicals are among the most important and longest-lived film publications in Switzerland.

The Filmberater, initially published on a monthly, then a bi-monthly basis, was the medium of the Catholic film work of the Swiss Catholic People's Association (SKVV) from 1941 onwards. Its core task was the publication of film reviews, i.e. short reviews and recommendations on as many cinema films as possible shown in Switzerland, which were printed on pre-perforated index cards.

The Protestant periodical ZOOM (published since 1949 by the Association of Protestant Reformed Churches in German-speaking Switzerland for church film, radio and television work) and the Catholic Filmberater were published from 1973 as the ecumenical periodical ZOOM-Filmberater and then only under the title ZOOM (with the subtitles: Zoom: Film, TV, Radio; Zoom: Film and Media; most recently Zoom: Zeitschrift für Film). This publication first appeared bi-monthly, from 1992 monthly, and was discontinued in 1999. The follow-up magazines Film: Zeitschrift für Film (German-language editorial staff) and Film: revue suisse de cinéma (French-language editorial staff, later Films: revue suisse de cinéma) were continued by the Ciné-Communication Foundation and definitively discontinued in 2003.

While in the beginning the Filmberater had a preservation pedagogical character, from the 1970s onwards the interest was primarily film aesthetically oriented. The periodicals contain numerous reviews and articles on national and international filmmaking, contributions on the Swiss film industry and film politics, conference and festival reports, reviews, event announcements and more.