Soviet state archive for film prints and raw stock — founded 1938, centrally managed all USSR productions. Now Moscow repository with historical holdings.
The Soviet film archive — founded in 1938 as the central administrative body for all film prints and original negatives of the USSR. Anyone working as an editor or archivist with Soviet material will inevitably encounter Gosfilmofond, as literally all productions of state cinema were stored here: from Eisenstein to the agitprop films of the 1960s. The structure was characteristically Soviet — centralist, comprehensively documented, but also susceptible to wear and tear and ideological purges.
In practice, this means that anyone needing access to original Soviet sources today works with holdings that originate from or were stored in Gosfilmofond. The archive in Moscow preserves not only complete negatives but also interpositives, editing table material, and outtakes — gold for restoration projects. The digital cataloging of these holdings is an ongoing Sisyphean task: many films now exist only in fragmentary form, some in multiple ideologically different cut versions, depending on when and under which regime they were archived.
The tricky part: not all materials are of equal value. Nitrate film holdings from the 1930s and 40s are often in critical condition — vinegar syndrome, mold infestation, physical shrinkage. Anyone shooting or editing with Gosfilmofond material must be prepared for the fact that original negatives are sometimes difficult to transport and require special climate control. For international co-productions, this means clarifying early on whether one has to work with interpositive material or if digitalizations are available.
Historically, Gosfilmofond was also an instrument of control — every copy registered, every distribution documented. This mandatory documentation is now a secret weapon for research: you can often trace exactly which versions went into circulation when, which were censored. This makes it possible to retroactively prove editing errors and manipulations. For documentarians and film historians, the archive, despite its inaccessibility — access is difficult, Russian bureaucracy remains bureaucracy — is an unparalleled foundation.