Roel Vande Winkel

Prof. Vande Winkel, affiliated to the KU Leuven and the LUCA School of Arts in Belgium, is an expert on the international expansion of ‘Third Reich’ cinema before and during the Second World War. He is co-author of the anthology Cinema and the Swastika (Palgrave, 2007). The edited collection received the 2007 Willy Haas award for the most significant contribution to German film history. Prof. Vande Winkel kept publishing on German cinema in Europe (1933-1945) and on related topics. Within that framework he paid several short-term research visits to German archives.

This longer research stay, which is funded by the Belgian Research Council, will allow Prof. Vande Winkel to consolidate his research by spending several weeks at various archives and libraries in Potsdam and Berlin. His ongoing research focuses on German film export/import (policies and practices) in- and outside Europe (1939-1945), on the distribution activities of the ‘Alliance Cinématographique Européenne’ (ACE, 1926-1944) and on the role of Alfred Greven (1940-1944) as the Reich Appointee for film business in the Netherlands, Belgium and Northern France (‘Reichsbeauftragter für das Filmwesen in den Niederlanden, Belgien und Nordfrankreich’).

As a visiting scholar, Prof. Vande Winkel will contribute to ZeM’s Archivbild in Aktion seminar and participate in various academic events. On May 10, he will introduce the film screening of Premier Rendez-Vous, which launches the series Filme für das besetzte Frankreich: Alfred Greven and die Continental at the Deutsches Historisches Museum. On May 11 and 12, he will participate in the Linientreu und populär. Das Ufa-Imperium 1933 bis 1945 symposium at the Deutsche Kinemathek and give a presentation about Ufa’s export policy in World War Two. On June 8, he will talk about German films and movie stars in occupied Belgium, 1940-1944 at the Filmmuseum Potsdam.

Roel Vande Winkel is board member of the International Association of Media and History (Iamhist) and associate editor of the Historical Journal for Film, Radio and Television.